An Unwanted Advance

The silence of the night was a familiar cloak to Ila, one she’d worn for years in the stark, echoing halls of the orphanage. Now, it draped itself over her small room in the Mouser house, a room she’d come to see as her sanctuary, her safe harbor. The moonlight, a pale, ethereal glow, painted silver stripes across the worn rug and the neatly made bed. She traced the patterns with her eyes, a quiet ritual of grounding herself, of reminding herself that she was here, and she was, for the first time, safe. Or so she had believed.

A faint creak from the window shattered the stillness. Ila’s breath hitched. Her heart, a hummingbird trapped in a cage, began to beat a frantic rhythm against her ribs. She’d secured the latch, double-checked it, a habit born of years of vigilance. But the sound persisted, a soft scraping, a gentle pressure against the glass. Then, a shadow detached itself from the darkness outside, a silhouette that moved with an unsettling fluidity. Leo.

Panic, cold and sharp, lanced through her. Her mind raced, searching for an escape, a solution, anything. But her limbs felt heavy, rooted to the spot. The window, with a soft groan of protesting wood, slid open. Leo swung his legs over the sill, landing on the floor with a surprising lightness. He was bathed in the moonlight, his features softened, yet to Ila, they appeared sharp, predatory.