Heather's comm buzzed and crackled as a desperate voice was broadcasted straight into her right ear.

"Wolf spotted it in sector B! Go, go, go!"

She winced, but the pain didn't stop her. She didn't have any time to worry about shattered eardrums. The prison was on lockdown.

The blaring red and white alarms overpowered the sound of her black combat boots pounding the concrete floors as she ran. The alarms were already loud, but the stainless steel walls helped to amplify the sound, making it almost unbearable to anyone who wasn't trained to tolerate them. The prisoners also seemed agitated; even from behind the large red automatic doors that separated each room from the hallway, she could hear them wailing and tearing apart their cells.

Heather slowed down as she approached the location of the escaped prisoner. She crept through an empty corridor, her gun at the ready. She breathed deeply, keeping her heart steady in her chest, but she still had a healthy amount of adrenaline flowing through her veins as she slowly rounded the corner. The beast stood not far from her. It was skulking at the end of the hallway, its black fur shimmering under the fluorescent lights. She took aim, and, holding her breath as she always did while taking a shot, fired.

A yellow paintball exploded on the back of the beast’s neck, and he let out a yelp.

Noah ripped off the werewolf mask, turning to face his assailant. Heather, a tiny but muscular Boricua whose paintball gun looked gigantic in proportion to her, grinned fiercely.

“I would have paid to see the look on your face,” she said. “Too bad you were wearing that stupid mask so I can’t even see it on the tapes.”

Noah glared at her. “Lucky shot.”

He jumped, another paintball hitting him square between the shoulderblades. Josh had snuck up on his other side, and jokingly blew on the top of his gun as if it were capable of smoking.

“Prick,” Noah growled.

A nearby set of steel doors slid open with a quiet woosh of air. A tall, intimidating dark skinned woman of around fifty entered the corridor, her face as cold as the building. It was Warden Montgomery, Heather’s boss. Heather quickly took the stance she had been trained to for years - shoulders squared, feet planted parallel to each other, back straight, head held high. The men did the same. The alarms had since shut down, making the halls eerily quiet, aside from the occasional wail of a forlorn prisoner.

“Excellent drill today,” Warden Montgomery said. “Though I do hope you don’t intend to goof around during an actual breach.”

“Of course not, ma’am,” Heather said. “We understand the gravity of the situation. If an actual prison break were to occur, I assure you everyone would step up. They may be goofy when things aren’t dire, but they’re still here for a reason.”

The other guards quickly nodded, accepting Heather’s life raft. Montgomery smiled, a rare sight, and gave Heather a nod of approval.

“I appreciate you whipping these boys into shape. It’s precisely why I made you the supervisor of this section. Now, if you excuse me, I have other training drills to conduct.”

She walked away, and the moment she was out of sight, the relief was palpable.

“Jeez, that woman makes me piss my pants,” Noah said. “Thanks for the backup, Heather.”

Heather shrugged. “I started it, it’s only fair I get you out of it.”

The three of them walked towards the break room, Heather not unaware of the two men snickering. She glanced over her shoulder at them as they trailed behind her, raising an eyebrow.

“Problem?”

“Nothing you need to be worried about,” Josh said, a goofy grin on his face.

She couldn’t help but smile back. She was well aware the younger man had a crush on her. It was almost flattering, in a way, but with his swoopy blonde hair and lopsided grin she couldn’t help but see him as a dorky kid. He wasn’t actually that young, but he certainly wore his youth on his face.

They finally arrived in the break room; a cramped space with not much more than a fridge, a coffee maker, and a table. Heather opened the door to find most of the guards she was in charge of standing around a sweaty chocolate cake. There was just one candle on top of it - a glittery chunk of wax that spelled out the number ‘33.’ Heather’s fight or flight response immediately kicked in, but it was too late to escape. She was trapped.

“Happy Birthday, Hall!” Mateo, a gentle giant of a man, bellowed.

They all broke into song, and Heather wanted nothing more than for the floor beneath her to turn to quicksand and swallow her whole. But it didn’t, and she had to suffer through the attention she was getting from her coworkers.

“Make a wish,” Isla, the newest recruit, urged.

I wish to drop dead, Heather thought as she blew out the gaudy birthday candles. Everyone clapped and cheered.

“Shouldn’t you all be at your stations?” Heather urged.

“Don’t worry, Todd and Phil took one for the team and are watching the cameras,” said Mateo. “We’re not being reckless here, we just wanted to take a few minutes to do something nice for ya. Montgomery said we could.”

Heather’s face flushed at the thought. Warden Montgomery hated fun, comradery, and celebrations in general on principle. The embarrassing idea that her boss may favor her unfairly crossed her mind. If she got her position because Montgomery liked her personally as opposed to because of her skill and experience, she very much wanted to actually drop dead.

“What’s wrong with you?” Isla asked. “You look like a spooked horse.”

“Have you ever even seen a horse?” Honestee, a cynical young brunette, questioned.

“Ye-yeah!” Isla insisted. “My parents took me to the mountains once and we went horseback riding! On a hiking trail.”

“In the woods?!” Honestee balked. “Bullshit.”

“That’s enough,” Heather said. “I don’t care who saw what, I just want some of my cake. I deserve it after listening to y’all caterwaul like that.”

The group laughed, and Mateo sliced the cake, giving Heather a very generous portion. “Noah made it himself,” the man said with a wink.

Noah’s freckled cheeks flushed red. “You swore you wouldn’t tell!”

“Awww,” Josh said. “Now I almost feel bad for shooting you in the back.”

“You guys seriously need to stop! My wife says I look like a fucking leopard.”

The others laughed at his expense. Heather sat down, putting her feet up on the table and genuinely enjoying her short break. The cake wasn’t half bad, actually. Suddenly Porsha, a short haired woman with a mean scar going straight through her patched right eye, burst into the room. She was one of the oldest of the Sector C gang, and it showed in her attitude. Well, that and her salt-and-pepper hair. Everything about her made it obvious she was a veteran of the war.

“We figured it wouldn’t be fitting to give you normal presents,” she said. “So we picked through the shit in the storage lockers.”

Heather frowned, her dark brows knitting together. “You mean the ones where we keep what was on the prisoners?”

“No, I stole them from the locker rooms.” Porsha rolled her eyes. “Yes from the prisoners! What do they fuckin’ care? They stole it in the first place; we’re just stealin' it back.”

Heather sighed deeply. It wasn’t necessarily against protocol to take things from prisoners - well, on paper it was, but almost everybody let it slide. Hell, even Montgomery didn’t mind as long as it wasn’t publicly flaunted. That being said, she minded it, if only because it was technically against the rules. But it wasn’t like they would ever get their stuff back regardless...

She opened the lid of the box. She gasped at what she saw - jewelry, candy, unopened cosmetics, and other simple pleasures she hadn’t been able to enjoy in a while. She felt tears prick at the corners of her eyes.

“Wow, guys, I… I don’t know what to say.”

Mateo wrapped her in a bear hug. “That’s fine, ‘cause what we have to say is all there, baby. We know you and Ry have been struggling to keep the house as is, so you don’t have much to spare for the stuff you want. Now, here it is.”

“Not exactly everything,” Honestee corrected. “It’s not like the storage lockers are a shopping mall. But, it’s pretty close. You complained about running out of foundation, and we know your favorite candy is chocolate… basically, we scrounged up what we could.”

“This is really thoughtful,” Heather said softly. “Thank you.”

She stuck around for a few more minutes, admiring what was given to her before taking her leave so she could go back to her duties. She still had a few more hours until her shift ended, and there was plenty of work that needed to be done before she clocked out. She stuck the box in her locker before heading to the monitor room, where all the footage from the cells was constantly reviewed. Besides having people positioned in certain areas, this was how they kept an eye on the prisoners. It was much safer than being inside the room with them, even if several inches of unbreakable glass separated the monsters from anything outside of their cells.

She walked up to Todd and Phil, who were watching a certain monitor intently. She looked over their shoulders, wanting to make sure there was nothing suspicious going on in the cell. To her disgust, she found it was a female vampire showering. The monsters didn’t have the privilege of curtains or tubs; their showers were composed of a showerhead and a drain in the tile floor. So really, unless they wanted to shower in their underwear, there was nothing to protect their dignity. This, she noticed, was a loophole the more chauvinistic guards took frequent advantage of.

“You realize the only part of you she’d suck on is your jugular, right?” Heather questioned, strategically concealing her anger.

“Oh come on,” Phil said, “I can still have an imagination. I mean, look at this thing. It’s got a rack like a…” He trailed off, most of the blood that could have been going to his brain having spread other places.

“Man, I wish we’d get technicolor video already," Todd chimed in. "I wanna know if the carpet matches the drapes!”

Heather rolled her eyes, having to swallow her disdain. Not that she exactly empathized with the vampire; she knew better than to view her the same way she would a human woman. Regardless, it was hard to hear things like that said about a body that had the same outward anatomy as hers. Instead of going off, however, she took her chummy approach. Scanning the thumbnail views of other security footage, she quickly pulled up a video of another vampire, this one a shirtless male doing pushups.

“That’s better.”

The two men laughed, and having safely averted the situation without stepping on any land mines, she addressed them in a more serious manner.

“It’s up to us to protect the people of New Wilmington. If a prisoner managed to escape because you were too busy gawking at vampire tits, I’m not going down for it. You are.”

“Yes ma’am,” the Dumb and Dumber chuckled.

They quickly went back to flipping through footage the way they were supposed to. Satisfied, Heather walked away. She went into her office, which was basically just a glorified janitor’s closet. As a supervisor, she had some authoritative duties, as well as some privileges. This included being able to look at prisoner files.

She found herself distracted at the computer, pulling up the file of the vampire the boys had been gawking at based on her cell number. It was 3759. She was beautiful for sure. Not that there was a vampire who wasn’t. They were built to be apex predators: strong and agile, with acute senses and sharp fangs. Their faces could contort into something monstrous, but until they showed their true nature, it was impossible to distinguish them from a conventionally attractive human.

That was the problem with the main monsters they dealt with - werewolves even more so, as they looked exactly like normal people. In fact, those were the closest to humans of all, they just happened to have the ability to shapeshift into bloodthirsty, wolf-like beasts. Heather stared at the vampire for another moment, images of her washing her hair ingrained into brain for the moment.

“You can’t fall for it,” she mumbled to herself. “This is why we don't stay in those rooms. It’s far too easy for them. They were born to play with hearts… so they can rip ‘em out after.”

She closed the file, leaning back in her chair. Now it was time for her “favorite” part of the night: motivating herself to do paperwork.

At 7am, Heather clocked out, managing to finish her duties on time. She said goodnight - or, good morning - to her coworkers before heading back to her car. It was an old red SUV, but it was hard to import any products into New Wilmington, let alone cars. She heard they were gonna build a Tesla factory, but she doubted it. That sounded like a pipe dream for her compound. A booming tech industry was not exactly what they offered, though there was still enough product (and enough cardiovascular systems) to keep the monsters flooding in.

She drove for a few minutes until she got to one of the only grocery stores in the compound. It happened to be one of the cheaper ones, thus it tended to be flooded with business. Though not exactly at that hour of the morning, which was why Heather planned to do her shopping instead of just going straight home and to bed. She walked through the front doors, the near-empty store feeling almost as isolating as the corridors had been. The only cashier working at that hour was perched on a stool, reading a novel and looking bored out of her mind.

Rylan and Heather were only vaguely similar. Rylan straightened her hair daily and wore it in a much shorter bob cut, was desperately near-sighted which required her to wear a pair of black framed spectacles, and had several tattoos up and down her arms, something Heather had never desired to get. She, arguably, was the cooler sister, though Heather was the one who was actually tough. Rylan couldn't even squish a bug without getting squeamish.

Heather smiled, walking up to the register and leaning over the counter to knock on her sister's head. “Hey, space cadet, have you done any work yet?”

Rylan snapped to attention, only calming down when she saw who her assailant was. She closed the book, using a piece of receipt paper to mark her place. “I’ve only had three customers so far.”

“Oh, it’ll pick up I’m sure.”

“You’re preaching to the choir on that one. I don’t even know if we have enough food for everyone; especially if new people start moving in.”

Heather shrugged. While summer was considered a relatively safe time of year to move between compounds, she doubted many people would think of New Wilmington as a better place to be.

“That hasn’t become a problem yet and I doubt it will this year. Besides, we maintain the right to turn people down at the gates.”

“That doesn’t stop you from letting monsters in.”

“Correction: that doesn’t stop them from finding a way in.” Heather sighed. “People need to stop underestimating their intelligence. The more we treat them like animals, the more lax people get. They may act like full on beasts at times, but they have the same anatomy as us, which includes the same capacity for intelligence.”

Rylan leaned back in her seat, at least as much as she could without falling off of it. “Welllll, the ‘same’ anatomy is a bit of a stretch. Though I’ll tell you right now, I’d kill to do magic.”

“Oh, you’d definitely become a killer. Witches are the worst of all of them.”

“And they’re the only ones we can do nothing about…” Rylan trailed off.

“We’re finding ways!” Heather assured her.

Rylan smiled, pushing her glasses further up her nose. “So how was work, Monster Hunter?”

Heather’s tan cheeks flushed with red as she remembered. “They ambushed me with a birthday party.”

Her sister laughed aloud. “Oh, ouch. They didn’t sing you happy birthday, did they?”

“That they did.”

“Wow. I don't even hate you enough to do that.”

Heather threw a mock punch in her sister’s direction, but the younger woman barely flinched.

“Alright, birthday girl, pick yourself up some birthday treats.”

Heather pinched the bridge of her nose. “You’re like sandpaper on my nerves. If you really wanna celebrate my birthday, then shut up about it.”

‘Never!” Rylan cried defiantly. “Now go treat yourself before I do it for you.”

“With what money?”

Rylan opened her book back up. “Pff. Exactly.”

Heather boredly circled the store, finding her way to the meat department. Or, well, it wasn’t really meat. Most compounds couldn’t obtain much of the real thing, as farming animals was expensive and required a lot of land. They couldn’t just use hydroponics for pigs like they could for vegetables. Thus, most of their meat was plant based. But Heather found her eyes wandering to a large chicken - a genuine one. Her mouth watered. She could live without meat, but she still craved it from time to time. It taunted her. And so did the price tag.

“Jesus, I’d have to work eighty hours a week to afford that,” she mumbled under her breath.

She cruised away from it, picking up a package of plant-based chicken wings instead. As she continued to browse, a familiar song started to play over the loudspeaker. The store was known to play music produced in the far western compounds, mainly cookie-cutter pop, and she immediately recognized the song. She found herself humming along as her fingers hovered over loaves of bread.

She was nearly startled by loud singing. One of the voices she recognized as her sister’s, but the other, masculine voice was completely foreign to her. She peered around the corner of the aisle, finding her sister standing at the front of the register she was stationed at. Next to her, singing just as loudly - though much more in key - was a tall, handsome man she’d never seen before.

She drank him in, mouth agape, despite the fact he was objectively being a giant dork in that he was belting along to a Taylor Swift song as if it was his moral duty. His skin was a rich medium brown, his eyes the color of freshly brewed coffee, and his tousled black hair looked soft to the touch. Her knuckles paled as she gripped onto the handle of her shopping cart without realizing it, unable to avert her gaze.

The song finally faded out, being replaced by the next cheesy pop song in the rotation. Rylan and the stranger stood there, breathing heavily as if they'd just run a marathon, but managed a high five.

“God, I haven’t heard that song in forever,” the man said as he brushed his long hair back into place. “It's one of those things you know every word of but wouldn’t seek out on your own.”

“Yeah,” Rylan said. “Not my taste, though. I mean, not to sound like a pretentious bitch, but I like the old stuff, yanno? Things that are really hard to find but still managed to get archived somewhere. I like to feel like I’m saving it from being forgotten, yanno?”

“That’s pretty cool, actually. As long as you don’t think you’re better than anybody else because of it.”

“Oh no. I mean, I do, but for unrelated reasons.”

The two laughed, and the man grabbed a nearby cart that already had a decent amount of groceries in it. He sang along to the song playing as he walked away, though at a much more reasonable volume this time.

Rylan finally locked eyes with her sister, and one of her thick eyebrows raised. “The fuck’s your problem?”

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Heather rushed over to her, her heart pounding in her chest despite the fact she was trying to keep her wits about her.

“Who was that?”

Rylan looked confused for a second until things finally clicked in her head. She let out a wheezing laugh, a wide grin now spread across her face. “Oh my God. You know I saw him first, right?”

“Just tell me who he is, idiot.”

Rylan chewed her lip for a second, thinking. “I really don’t know much about him. He just pops in every so often to get groceries. I think he might be one of those weirdos that lives on the Outskirts… but shit, I’d live in a dilapidated building if he'd be my roommate.”

Heather held back a snort. “Name?”

“Chris. Don’t know what it’s short for, that’s all I know about him. It makes him sexy and mysterious… almost too mysterious.” She narrowed her eyes in mock suspicion, watching him agonize over the sparse apple selections in the distance.

“If he’s gotten in more than once, then I don’t see a problem.”

Their way of screening people, while not foolproof, certainly prevented many of the creatures who attempted to get in from entering the compound. In fact, many of the monsters in the prison had been stopped and detained at the entrance.

Heather walked away from her sister, continuing to grab things she had on her list, as well as picking up a pack of snack cakes, as per Rylan's advice. She also thought about making herself a proper cake, as the one gifted to her at work had been devoured by her coworkers. Rylan couldn’t miss out, that wouldn’t be fair. She walked into the baking aisle, freezing when she saw Chris again.

He was scanning a shelf with bags of sugar on it, finally picking a large bag. A waterfall of sugar immediately spilled from the bottom, and he let out a comical gasp, covering the gap with his hand. Heather couldn’t repress the giggle rising in her throat, and Chris’s head turned, his eyes locking with hers. She quickly looked down at her phone, embarrassed.

“You know,” Chris said, “you’d think that when we were rebuilding society, someone would have suggested we stop putting flour and sugar in paper bags. For the sake of everyone’s sanity, at least. But nope, still the same shitty packaging. I don’t - I don’t even know what to do with this.” He flipped the bag upside down, tucking it under his arm. “Because they all leak, but if I put this one back, I'd feel like I’d be the asshole.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Heather said. “People still earn money for cleaning it up.”

“Doesn’t mean they should have to in the first place… screw it, I’ll just take this one.”

He placed it in the child seat of his cart, still upside down to prevent more spillage.

“Now watch it spill from the top,” Heather joked.

Chris smiled: the genuine, friendly type of grin that was extremely contagious. Heather felt herself smile too. Chris moved on, however, walking further down the aisle to examine the spices. Heather took a deep breath, reassured herself it was fine and normal to be this lonely and single at thirty-two – God, no, thirty-three now – and went to go look at cake mixes as she’d intended.

But, as if whatever power existed above was taunting her, she ran into him a second time. That time in the line to check out - which honestly was inevitable, given how there was only one lane open. The next cashiers wouldn’t arrive for another hour or so, which was when the morning rush would start. Heather pulled up behind Chris, sandwiching him between herself and an elderly woman she recognized as Mrs. Householder. Both Chris and Rylan were enchanted by the woman, and for good reason. She was arguably the sweetest person alive.

“And I know it’s going to be a good day, because I found this.” Mrs. Householder pulled a penny out of her pocket. “Headside up!”

“Uh, ‘headside up?’” Rylan asked, continuing to scan the woman’s groceries and bagging them for her.

“Yes, it’s an older superstition. You’ve never heard it?”

“I mean, I’m no spring chicken, but I haven’t,” Rylan said.

Mrs. Householder scoffed. “How old are you? 21?”

Rylan laughed. “Generous of you. I’m 30.”

“Well, Rylan, it’s important to keep our cultures alive. Everyone, from people who look like me, to people who look like you, to people who look like him.” She motioned vaguely to Chris. “Even mundane things like headsideup pennies bring good luck. Because if we ever lose that… that’s how the monsters would truly win.”

Rylan nodded solemnly. Chris’s expression stayed neutral as he stacked his items on the belt, though his face warmed when he noticed Heather. At least, she hoped it did. It seemed to? She looked away again quickly, only to be embarrassed of how she was acting. She was a grown woman, dammit! She could… flirt.

“I, uh, like your shirt.” Heather offered.

Chris looked down at what he was wearing as if he’d forgotten what it’d looked like, pulling on the collar. It was just a plain black v neck t-shirt, maybe a little worn with use. “Thank you.”

Heather, for the second time that day, wanted the floor to swallow her whole. “...You’re welcome.”

Conversation came much more naturally for Chris, apparently, and he picked up the box of cake mix she had fit onto the now packed conveyor belt. “Celebrating or snacking?"

“It’s her birthday!” Rylan piped up, never passing up an opportunity to humiliate her older sister.

“Oh, happy birthday dear!” Mrs. Householder said.

“I second that,” Chris chimed in.

Heather’s ears went hot. “Thank you-”

“She’s thirty-three now," Rylan said. "Yanno, the age where you really start to get cobwebs up in there.” She motioned vaguely towards her crotch.

Heather had to stamp the impulse to throw a can of biscuit dough at Rylan’s head. Quickly gaining composure, she tugged at the sleeve of her uniform, unable to hide how shy she felt. “I’m thirty-three. Not that old.”

“Hey, me too,” Chris said. “Technically, anyway.”

“Technically?”

She could have sworn Chris panicked for a moment, but he recovered so quickly she wrote it off.

“My birthday’s in December. So not yet.”

“Oh, happy almost birthday, sweetheart!” Mrs. Householder said, putting a hand on his bicep.

Jesus, how was a seventy-eighty year-old woman better at macking on someone than she was?

“Thank you,” Chris said, giving the old woman's hand a pat.

Finally, the old woman left, and Chris’s order was next. He leaned against the counter, watching Rylan scan his items.

“So, you two are sisters, I’m guessing?”

“What gave it away?” Rylan asked, her tone teasing.

“Oh, I don’t know. The facial structure, the natural rapport, the fact you didn’t hesitate for even a second to publicly humiliate her.”

Rylan laughed, and Heather lifted a hand to her wild mane of dark brown curls self consciously. It looked even crazier than usual, come to think of it, as she’d been wearing it in a tight bun all night. The moment it was released, it had sprung out everywhere. She never usually cared, except for in that moment, with the handsome stranger’s impossibly dark eyes regarding her.

“True that,” said Rylan. “She is my personal punching bag.”

“And you’re this close to being my literal punching bag,” Heather growled.

Chris chuckled. “I wouldn’t take that idly, Ry, she’s a guard after all.”

Heather put a hand over her gun. “Yes. I am authorized to use a firearm and I absolutely will, without hesitation.”

Chris gave Rylan a coy smile. “They’re gonna find you at the bottom of the Cape Fear River one of these days.”

Rylan raised her up her hands briefly. “Okay, I liked this conversation a lot better when it was Heather getting ganged up on.”

All three of them laughed. After a few minutes, Chris’s transaction was finished. To Heather’s shock, instead of paying with a card like most people, he paid in cash. Rylan, of course, wasn’t fazed by it since he was a regular. She opened up the drawer of the register - Heather half expected there to be a puff of dust as she did so - and placed the cash inside.

“Have a good one,” she said as he placed the final bags into his cart.

“Right back at ya,” He looked to Heather, who was actually able to maintain eye contact. “It was nice meeting you, Heather.”

“You too,” she offered, her voice unusually soft.

He left the store, and Heather’s eyes trailed after him. So did Rylan’s.

“God, do I love a good ass on a dude,” she said. “Very peggable.”

“Rylan, for fuck’s sake!” Heather exclaimed.

“Oh, don’t be a Puritan!”

Heather let out a sigh, though she did briefly glance over to behold the sight. Her sister, while brash, wasn’t wrong.

“You know what though?” Rylan continued. “I’ve decided I’m mad at you.”

Heather raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

“Because he likes you. And if he ends up liking you more than he likes me, you are so dead.”

“What is this, middle school?”

“I’m just saying.”

Heather rolled her eyes as she began the process of punching her information into the pin pad. “Look, he’s sweet and handsome, but also clearly loaded. If the one in a million chance of him falling in love with one of us actually comes to fruition, the other’ll still benefit.”

Rylan looked at her in disbelief. “Yeah, but only one of us would get to fuck him. I mean, I don’t know if he’s into that sort of thing, but I sure the fuck ain’t.”

“I’m just saying. Now please stop talking like that, you’re at work for God’s sake.”

“Fine.”

Heather finished putting her remaining grocery bags in the cart, then turned back to her sister. “...We could always rock-paper-scissors for him,” she offered as a joke.

Rylan smirked. “What is this, middle school?”

Heather pushed her groceries out to her car, an amused smile still on her face from the earlier encounter. She opened up her door, ready to load the groceries into the backseat. She had brought more food than she intended, and sighed at the amount of money she spent - as well as at the amount of bags she was going to have to haul back to the house by herself. As she began the tedious process, she heard a car door slam, but thought nothing of it until a newly familiar voice called out to her.

"You want some help with that?"

Heather nearly jumped out of her skin. She looked over her shoulder to see Chris a few spots away. He had clearly been ready to go, his sunglasses on and his navy blue Subaru already loaded with all of his stuff. He leaned against his car, studying her, his teeth blindly white against his brown skin.

"Well, if just you stand there and watch me you'd be an asshole, now wouldn't ya?" Heather remarked.

Accepting the invitation, Chris approached the car, taking a hand out of his pocket and sticking it towards her. "I was just thinking about how we didn't have a proper introduction earlier. I'm Chris."

Heather gingerly lifted her hand, placing it in his. His palms were so soft, immediately making her insecure about her own calloused hands. Wait, how did a guy even get biceps like that without lifting weights regularly? Maybe he just used a powerful moisturizer...

"Heather," she finally managed to choke out.

Chris pulled his hand away, immediately breaking the spell. "It's a pleasure."

He turned away, immediately pulling two handfuls of bags from her cart. "You're aggressively southern. Are you from the mountains or something?"

Heather shook her head, laughing. "Nah. My dad was though, that's probably why. You, on the other hand, don't sound like you're from North Cackalacky at all. If I didn't know any better, I'd accuse you of being a Yankee."

"You got me. I'm a northern transplant."

"...You're from New York, aren't you?"

Chris cleared his throat awkwardly. "Yes. I don't like to dwell on it though."

Heather frowned. The state had become almost completely taken over by witches, aside from a few encampments of humans who refused to leave. She wondered if Chris had been part of the latter group.

"I understand," Heather said.

"So, how about you? Are you sure you're not from the mountains?"

Heather chuckled, shaking her head. "No, no, I've been here all my life. Never left New Wilmington and never will."

Chris nodded, leaning against her car for a moment. The groceries had since been loaded, forcing Heather to just stand there and watch him, her pulse fluttering nervously. The dark sunglasses concealing his eyes made it impossible to tell what he was thinking.

"So," he finally stated. "I think that I won't be leaving New Wilmington for a while either. So..." He trailed off. Was he nervous? "Maybe we could meet up sometime. Grab a bite to eat, something casual like that."

Heather felt heat flush her cheeks. "Are you being for real?"

"Did it sound like I'm joking?" A contagious smile crossed his lips once again. "Here, give me your phone."

Her brain almost shut down. She didn't know what to think. It had been a long time since a man had been so forward with her - hell, and it usually pissed her off when men were so presumptuous. But Chris' approach seemed to come from a place of confidence, and not boorishness. He just... liked Heather and wanted to take her out...

Praying her hands weren't shaking, she slipped her phone out of her bag, unlocking it and opening her contacts before handing it to him. It took a moment; he seemed almost slow with it, as if he wasn't used to using a cellphone at all. But finally, he handed it back to her. He'd added himself under just the name Chris, taking the time to add a blue heart emoji next to his name.

"Seriously?" Heather snorted.

Chris shrugged. "You would've added it yourself either way. Talk to you soon?"

"Very soon."

A bright smile flashed across Chris' features. "I like the sound of that."

Heather finally began her drive home, still amped up from her earlier encounter. A man that attractive? Wanting her? She knew nothing about him, but somehow, felt drawn to him. She couldn't shake the feeling of his hand in hers. She flipped through the selections on her music pod using the button on her steering wheel, trying to find something to help keep her awake.

She stopped short when she heard the opening notes of a song she didn’t think about often, but still gave her a pang of nostalgia. She used to listen to it every day when she was a child, dramatically leaning out her bedroom window, singing along as she imagined herself escaping from her compound. That sentiment, of course, was exasperated by feelings of being unsafe and unseen. Now that she was a grown woman, she didn’t really feel the same way. Despite its flaws, New Wilmington was her home.

She still sang along as she had years ago, however, all her timidness melting away thanks to her solitude.. And it would have surprised many people she knew that she could actually keep up with the vocals. Unlike Rylan, she wasn’t completely tone deaf. Singing all the time (at least in private) helped that fact.

The imaginary concert she was performing was interrupted by something running out into the road. At first she panicked, believing she was about to hit a dog, but it didn’t take her long to realize it was no beast she was familiar with. The old SUV screeched to a halt, and the creature froze in turn. It was one of those monsters they didn’t have a name for: a creature that seemed to come out of nowhere to wreak havoc.

Heather realized why she thought it was a dog at first, as it very much looked like one. It was similar to an emaciated lab, with thick, stringy black hair that grew from the top of its head and all the way down its spine to the base of its tail, dangling over its sides. Its eyes were cloudy and ghostly blue, like those of a drowned corpse, and its mouth hung open to reveal rows of yellow teeth. The worst part was, it didn’t walk like a dog. It had humanoid limbs, with hands and feet that ended in a sickening cross between dog claws and human digits.

Heather quickly shifted gears. She hopped out of the car, ready to fight the beast, which didn’t hesitate to leap at her. It knocked her to the ground. She cringed as its rancid breath blew across her face. Pulling out a knife from her belt, she stabbed it in the side, causing it to let out a sickening human-like scream. She kicked it off her and went to reach for her gun when it lunged for her again. She dodged, but it managed to swipe the knife out of her hand. Her next instinct was to wrap her hands around its neck. It retaliated by pushing its weight back against her. For how slender it was, it was pretty strong. It started to shove her onto the hood of her car.

She pulled her leg up as she extended a hand towards it, grabbing the spare knife she kept in her boot. That time, she stabbed it in the neck. Its disturbed scream turned into a gurgle. Once it had stumbled far enough back, she pulled out her gun, shooting it in the head. The creature fell to the pavement with a soft thud. She nudged it with the steel toe of her boot. It didn’t twitch, but she still fired a second shot into its heart, just for good measure.

“Would’ve been better off hittin’ the damn thing,” she grumbled as she retrieved her knife from its neck.

It was at that point she became cognizant of the people coming out of their houses to stare, and the residential traffic she had blocked by stopping her car. She didn’t become embarrassed, however, instead taking on her professional demeanor.

“You have nothing to worry about,” she said. “Please go back inside until the appropriate authorities have dealt with this."

The people listened to her, shuffling back into their homes. One little girl was having to be pulled away by her mother, staring in wide-eyed awe at the scene she’d just witnessed.

“Mama, when I grow up, I want to be a guard!”

Heather’s heart swelled, and a smile quickly gave a visual manifestation of the feeling.

Several Tactical Team vehicles rolled up, ruining her mood. Tactical work had been her first choice, but the training was much harder and more extensive, mainly because they were the few people who were able to go into the Outskirts without much trouble. She could have powered through it, had the other cadets not been such huge bullies – hiding her clothes while she showered, making her look like a fool in front of her commanding officers, putting used tampons in her pillowcase, and sometimes even physically beating her.

Her father had yelled at her when she quit, saying she took the “coward’s route out” with that same scowl and disdain he had in many of her memories, but she decided she’d rather have the less acclaimed position of a prison guard than put up with even one more day of abuse. Thankfully for her, the only thing she had to go through in the guard program was a hazing process. Also awful, but at least it was temporary and thus not nearly as soul-crushing.

As if the higher powers were just trying to one up each other in making her day worse, the woman who got out of the vehicle was one of her main tormentors. Julia Rodriguez. She looked the same as she had back when they were teenagers: tall, steely eyed, and her hair pulled into a ponytail so tight it was probably giving her a facelift. It had been over a decade, but Heather still couldn’t shake off the grudge. Julia seemed to have one too, as she didn’t look too keen to see Heather either.

“You killed it?” She asked. Her tone was devoid of emotion.

"It ran out in front of my car, so I took matters into my own hands.” Heather pulled down the collar of her black shirt, showing the beginning of a scar that cut across her collar bone. “We have a kill-on-sight policy with creatures like this for a reason.”

Julia gave a curt nod, walking over to examine the body. “You can move along. We’ll deal with this.”

“Of course, ma’am. I’d hate to get in your way.”

Julia shot her a glare. Heather was being passive aggressive, but not enough to be called out on without making her look like an ass in the process. They had one last lingering look at each other - Heather’s hazel eyes conveying the homicidal sentiment she still harbored - before finally turning back to what they were doing. Heather carefully drove around the scene, getting annoyed looks from the other citizens who would be stuck there until the road was cleared.

Heather woke up to mewling. She lazily opened her eyes only to find her overweight gray and white cat Maru clambering onto the bed, a toy in his mouth. He dropped the colorful mouse onto Heather’s stomach, and she smiled, offering him a scratch.

“Is that for me? Good boy! Thank you so much!” She said in a high-pitched voice.

She looked at her phone, staring in disgust. Her alarm was going to go off in five minutes. Yet another cruel joke from God, and on her birthday no less. Her cat head butted her chin, and Heather kissed his face in reply before letting her head hit the pillow. On the ceiling above her was a mural of a beach at sunset, which her father and uncle had painted for her many years before. She got lost in it for a few minutes, finally being snapped out of it by the buzzing of her alarm.

Groaning, she rolled out of bed, reluctant to even stand on her own two feet. She grabbed a change of clothes and went into the bathroom, shutting the cat in with her. Out of force of habit, she ended up staring into the mirror as she got undressed. She ran a finger across the scar on her chest.

“There's somethin' about scars,” Heather said with a wistful sigh. "On men, they're sexy. But on women? People think they're ugly as hell. Well, some of 'em, the ones who are intimidated by strong women. But Chris... he doesn't seem like one of those. He's confident. He should call me soon. Or at least send a text. Right, Maru?”

The cat responded by taking a piss in his litterbox.

Once she was fully undressed, Heather went to the shower. She reached in and turned the knob all the way to the left, scrolling through apps on her phone as she waited for it to heat up. Once she was sure she wouldn’t turn into an icicle, she went to step in - only to realize it hadn’t even warmed up one degree. She screamed and recoiled as freezing cold water hit her calf, nearly slipping on the mat underneath her feet. She opened the door, sticking her head out.

“Rylan! You used up all the hot water again!” Heather exclaimed, shouting louder than she had to.

“No, it’s straight up not working!” Rylan screamed back, agitated by the accusation. “I found out while I was washing the dishes hours ago!”

Heather groaned, slamming the bathroom door. Maru paused halfway through licking his back leg, startled.

“Guess it’s another cold shower for me,” Heather sighed. “This cannot be sanitary.”

She quickly washed her hair and body, having no time to have an existential crisis, or sing, or do much of anything other than basic shower essentials. Once she was finished washing herself, she hopped out like there was a werewolf nipping at her heels, and grabbed a towel from the nearby rack. At the very least, the AC was messed up as well, so while it was like the polar ice caps downstairs, upstairs it wasn’t much cooler than outside. Normally it bothered her, but after her arctic shower she could be thankful. Sitting down on the closed lid of the toilet seat, she began to mope.

They could barely afford to live in their parents’ house anymore; how the hell were they gonna afford repair-people for both the AC and the water heater? She thought about it, getting herself into a rotten mood. God, she should have stayed in Tactical training. The years of mental and physical abuse would probably have messed her up, but she’d be making ten times more money than she was as a measly prison guard. At least she had good health insurance? Damn, but the tactical people also had dental…

Her cell phone began to ring. She perked up with a gasp, fully anticipating the caller to be the man she'd talked to earlier that day. Heather hopped off her perch, scrambling to grab her phone which was still sitting on the vanity. She answered the call like her life depended on it.

"Hi!"

"Good evening, Heather. This is Aurora Montgomery."

Heather felt her soul leave her body.

"Oh- uh, I'm so sorry, ma'am, I was expecting a call from someone else and I just assumed that it was them."

Montgomery was unamused. "Your phone does tell you who's calling, Heather."

Heather's heart sank. Annoying Montgomeru brought up the same feeling she would get whenever her mother chastised her for interrupting her work. I'm a very busy woman, I don't have time for your childish games. Or for anything, in retrospect.

"My apologies once again, ma'am. What do you need?"

“Well, it’s very odd, but the security cameras went out earlier this afternoon. We called my husband in, but he couldn’t figure out the problem. He says it may be magic. We’re suspecting an attempted prison break using outside resources. Of course we can’t get the security cameras back online - to be frank, we don’t know when this will even happen - so we’ll have to approach how we do our job from a different angle.”

“And that would be…?” Heather asked, nervous.

“We’ll be forced to place a guard in each room. This means having to spread our staff even thinner, so I’ll have to assign you to a room as well.”

Heather stifled a groan. What was it, strike four now? Five? Something or someone hated her, that much was certain.

“...I understand, ma’am.”

“Tonight, I would like you to brief the others, then go to your assigned post. I’ll pick up the slack with the paperwork, so don’t worry about that.”

A sigh of relief managed to slip past Heather’s lips. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“You’re welcome. I’m glad you understand - I don’t think your peers will be nearly as pleased. I know good and well quite a few of them prefer to watch the inmates shower than actually do their duties. They do know I can view their activity, right?"

“Ahem - I’ll remind them. For future reference when the cameras are back online, of course.”

“Mmm. Hopefully it won't be long. I’ll see you soon.”

“You too, ma’am. Have a good evening.”

Heather slid down against the side of the vanity, putting her head in her hands. Maru came over, as if sensing her distress, and began to lick her leg. He then bit her, upset she didn’t immediately begin to pet him.

“OW… kick a woman while she’s down, why don’t ya? Asshole.”

The smell of chicken greeted Heather’s nose as she made her way downstairs and into the kitchen. Rylan was busy at the stove, humming along to one of her indie songs.

“Hey, you ready for brinner, karate champ?” Her sister asked.

Heather grinned. “Oh, I am so ready for brinner… wait, where’d karate champ come from?”

“Didn’t you see? You’re all over TownTalk.”

She handed Heather her phone, which had the compound’s local app open on it. In the post, she could see a cell phone video of her fighting the creature she’d almost literally run into on the way home.

“...Great.”

“Yes, great, and unironically.” Rylan took a taste of the mashed potatoes, smacking her lips before adding more garlic to them. “Now everybody knows what a badass you are.”

“You know the one thing I hate most in this world is unwanted attention, right?”

“Yes, which is why I’m thriving right now. Happy birthday!”

Heather ignored the jab. “Did you make that cake I brought?”

“Hell yeah! And I already had a piece.”

“Hey! Birthday girl gets the first slice!”

“Bitch please, you were upstairs snoring, dreaming about the grocery store hunk. You really think I had the patience to wait for you? Let alone until after you had your brinner?”

“For the record, I dreamed about a beach walk, not Chris.”

“You need to chill with the beach obsession. You don’t have the guts to leave this compound and you know it.”

Heather’s jaw clenched. “I don’t stay because I’m fearful. I stay because I have a duty to this compound and its people. You saw the video. I lay my life down to keep citizens like you safe.”

“Okay, okay, Jesus! Spare me the lecture. Aren’t you gonna ask what's cooking?”

“Impossible Chicken.”

“Wrong! It’s chicken chicken.”

Heather’s jaw dropped, remembering the huge bird she’d seen earlier at the store. “Rylan! We can’t afford that!”

“Yes, we can, because I used my own money from my own savings, not the house money! I brought this instead of, oh, I don’t know, a new Friendly Runner package.”

“You need to chill with those in-app purchases. Looking at your account activity is frankly scary.”

“Then mind your own damn business and quit looking at my bank statements!”

The oven timer beeped, and Rylan pulled the chicken out. It looked gorgeous. Heather felt her mouth begin to water.

“Breakfast of champions,” Rylan remarked, taking off her oven mitts.

“You’re goddamned right,” Heather replied.

“Happy birthday, hermana. And I mean it this time.”

“...Thanks.”

Later that night, after informing her distressed subordinates of the change in protocol, she went down a sector C corridor. She’d been assigned to a new prisoner: 6543. That particularly got under her skin, as new prisoners were the most likely to be manipulative or aggressive. At least, in her mind, she had a steely enough demeanor to deal with that type of behavior.

She finally reached the cell they were being kept in, pressing her key card to the scanner. The door swung open for her, and she froze. Her blood turned to ice as she saw a face not familiar, but unmistakably recognizable: Chris. He stared back, almost as surprised as she was.

“...I was hoping you wouldn’t see me like this,” he said.

Heather gaped, unable to prevent herself from reacting to the situation.

“You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kidding me.”