Behind a loading bay washed in flickering orange light, she found them.
Two infants lay bundled in a stroller tipped on its side, their faces red with cold and fear, and beside them, half collapsed against the concrete wall, was a man bleeding from a gash on his forehead, his breath shallow and uneven, his eyes unfocused but desperate as they locked onto her.
“Please,” he whispered, his voice breaking as rain streaked down his face. “Do not walk away.”
Lena’s hands shook as she pulled out her phone, dialing emergency services with fingers that barely felt real, and while she spoke to the dispatcher, she did what came instinctively, lifting the stroller upright, pressing her jacket around the babies, and kneeling beside the stranger to keep him conscious until help arrived.
That night changed everything.
The man’s name was Jonathan Hale, and in the days that followed, Lena learned that he was not just injured but hunted, that the babies were his sons, barely months old, and that someone powerful had already begun circling them like prey.