Irina’s POV

"You’re coming with me."

I stared at her hand wrapped around mine.

Warm. Firm. Like she’d done this a hundred times before.

"Wait." I didn’t move. "Wait — you don’t know me."

She blinked. "What?" 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

"You don’t know who I am." I pulled my hand back, just slightly. Not all the way — I didn’t know why I didn’t pull it back all the way. "I just beat up four men in a park. In the middle of the night. Alone." I looked at her. "Doesn’t that — I don’t know — concern you?"

Mia stared at me for a second.

Then she laughed.

Not a nervous laugh. Not a polite laugh. A real one — bright and a little startled, like I’d said something genuinely funny.

"Oh my god." She pressed her free hand over her mouth. "You’re worried about *me* being scared of *you*."

"It’s a reasonable concern—"

"Irina." She dropped her hand. Her eyes were still lit up, still a little wet from crying, but the warmth in them was completely real. "You were *alone*. You had nowhere to go. You were exhausted and sick and you still walked straight into that." She shook her head. "You didn’t have to do that. You didn’t know me either. But you came anyway."

I didn’t say anything.

"Bad people don’t do that," she said simply. "Bad people walk the other way."

The words sat there between us.

I didn’t know what to do with them. I was so used to being the thing people walked away from. Being the warning, the problem, the one everyone decided wasn’t worth the trouble. The idea that I could be the reason someone *stayed* — that I could be the thing that showed up instead of disappeared — it didn’t fit right. Like a coat cut for someone else.

Mia tilted her head.

"Also," she added, "you broke that guy’s wrist, which was awesome."

Something in my chest shifted. Almost — almost — like wanting to smile.

"That was an accident," I said.

"Even better." She grabbed my hand again. "Come on."

---

We walked.

She talked.

I learned, in the space of four city blocks, that she was nineteen, that she was visiting the city for a gap year program she’d enrolled in before starting med school in the fall, and that she had ended up in that park because of a guy.

"I met him at the orientation event," she said. "He seemed fine. Normal. He asked if I wanted to walk around, see the neighborhood. I said sure." She made a sound. Disgusted with herself. "I know. I know. Don’t say it."

"I wasn’t going to say anything."

"My roommate would absolutely say it." She tugged her jacket tighter with her free hand. The rip at the shoulder gaped. "She’s going to say *I told you so* for the next six months and I completely deserve it."

I watched the sidewalk. "Is he someone you knew? Or just—"

"Just a guy." She shook her head. "That’s the worst part. I don’t even know his name. He gave me a fake one. I don’t know if it’s even connected to anything — maybe he does it to everyone, maybe it’s just — I don’t know." A pause. "I don’t know how it would have ended if you hadn’t shown up."

Her voice went quieter on the last part.

I squeezed her hand once without thinking.

She didn’t comment on it. She just squeezed back.

---

The apartment building appeared at the end of a tree-lined street.

I stopped walking.

*Apartment* was the wrong word. It was a building, yes, technically — but the kind of building that had a doorman, and polished stone steps, and windows that glowed warm gold from inside even at this hour. The kind of building I’d passed earlier today and not even looked at because places like that didn’t have *rooms for rent* signs in the window. They didn’t need to.

"This is where you live?" I said.

"My parents keep an apartment here," Mia said. "For when they’re in the city for work. I’m staying here while I do the program." She started up the steps. "Come on."

I didn’t move immediately.

She glanced back.

"Irina."

"This is — this is too much." My throat was raw. The words came out scratchy. "You don’t have to—"

"You have a blister," she said. "And a fever. And you’re pregnant." She pointed at the door. "Inside. Now."

The doorman held the door open and said good evening, and I followed Mia through the lobby with its marble floor and its low lighting and its smell of — nothing. Clean air. No mold, no exhaust, no cold. Just nothing.

My legs carried me.

I didn’t know how.

---

The elevator opened directly into the apartment.

It was large.

That was the first thing. Just — large. High ceilings and warm lighting and a kitchen that was bigger than any room I’d slept in for the past year. A long couch. Bookshelves. Plants that were actually alive. The smell of something cooked recently, faint but real, underneath the clean.

And two people standing in the kitchen doorway.

They were older — fifties, maybe, both of them. The woman had Mia’s same dark eyes and a calm face and a mug of tea in both hands. The man had reading glasses pushed up on his head and a slight frown that wasn’t unfriendly, just careful.

"Mom, Dad." Mia walked in like nothing unusual had happened tonight. "This is Irina. She helped me. I’ll explain later. Can she stay?"

Silence for exactly two seconds.

The woman — Mia’s mother — looked at me. Not the quick top-to-bottom inspection I’d gotten all day from landlords and managers. Something more careful. More clinical. Her eyes moved over the blister bruise on my lip, the split knuckles, the way I was holding my shoulders.

I made myself stand still.

"Of course," she said. Her voice was even. No hesitation. "Come in, please. You look like you’ve had a very long night."

---

Her mother was an internist. Her father was an OB.

That came out while her mother was cleaning my knuckles at the kitchen table. Mia was talking. I was barely saying anything — just *yes* and *no* and the occasional *thank you* in whatever was left of my voice.

An hour later I was at the kitchen table with a bowl of soup in front of me.

Rice on the side. Mia across from me. Her parents moving around quietly in the background, refilling water, not asking me anything.

Nobody asked me to explain. Nobody made me perform gratitude. Her mother put the food down, said *eat*, and walked away like it was nothing.

I picked up the spoon.

My hand was shaking a little.

Mia was talking — about her roommate, about the program, about something her mother had said on the phone when we were still in the elevator. I wasn’t really following it. I just let her voice sit in the background.

The soup was warm.

I took one bite. Then another.

The baby was okay. Still going.

I took another bite.

And then my eyes started burning.

I blinked. Hard. Pressed my lips together.

A tear hit the bowl.

Then another.

Mia stopped talking.

I stared at the soup. My breathing went uneven and I pressed my hand over my mouth and told myself *not here, stop it* — but it didn’t work. My body had already made up its mind. My shoulders shook.

And I cried.