The hitman appeared days later, following them through markets and side streets. Lena noticed first. She had the instincts of someone raised in danger. They ran. Hid. Climbed broken stairwells. Daniel felt the terrifying weight of being hunted.
Lena brought him to an abandoned building where other street kids slept. There he shared stale bread and warm tap water. He learned to wash clothes in a bucket, carry heavy jugs, collect discarded fruit. His body ached—but what hurt more was realizing how often he had walked past people like them without seeing them.
One night, Lena told him about her life: a mother who died young, no father she could name, friends who vanished into dark vans. Daniel listened, helpless.
“Why did you save me?” he asked.
She shrugged. “You were dying. No one stopped.”
At a small clinic, after a nervous doctor quietly ushered them out, Daniel understood Victor had erased him not just socially—but officially.
Then Lena mentioned someone from Daniel’s office who once gave her food: a woman named Rachel.