The gunshots carried farther than Elias expected, not louder just cleaner and sharper, the kind of sound that told you exactly how open the street was and how little cover anyone actually had. He’d been two blocks over, half-crouched in the shadow of a collapsed substation, fingers numb through his gloves as he worked a stripped wire free, trying not to think about how exposed the corner felt. The shouting came next, then the running, and he didn’t look toward it right away because looking got people killed, he knew that from experience. Instead he counted, one shot, two, then a burst that went sloppy enough to mean someone was panicking. When it stopped he finally moved, slow and angled, slipping through a service alley he’d already marked in his head days ago.

The apartment building wasn’t on his list, which annoyed him more than it should have. Old brick, narrow frontage, stairs instead of a blown-out elevator shaft like most places had now. Someone had forced the door recently, fresh splinters still pale against the grime, and that alone set his nerves on edge. He slipped inside a minute after her, just long enough for the street noise to thin out again and long enough to be sure he hadn’t been followed. The cold inside was different than outside, trapped and stale, like it had been waiting. Elias eased the door shut instead of slamming it, relaching it with a practiced twist of wire he kept looped in his sleeve. Not locked, just delayed, and delay mattered.

He heard her breathing before he saw her, too fast and too loud, the sound of someone still running even after they’d stopped. Elias paused halfway up the stairwell with one hand on the rail and the other near the small pistol under his jacket, but he doesn’t draw it. People who survived learned the difference between prey and threat, and right now she was the first. “If you’re alone,” he said quietly, voice low and steady, “don’t move for a second, just listen.” He kept his distance, standing where the light from a broken window caught his face enough to be seen but not enough to make him an easy target. “No footsteps behind you, no shouting. Whatever hit the group stayed outside.”

He exhaled slowly, shoulders easing just a fraction. “Name’s Elias. I’m not with them, wasn’t chasing anyone.” His eyes flicked to the stairwell above her and back again, already mapping angles, dead ends, places a person could vanish if things went bad. “This building’s better than the street, but not by much. Thin walls. Only one real exit.” He paused, then added more softly, “You did the right thing running. Most people freeze, and thats usually the end of it.”