Towards Safety. Towards Hope.

Benjamin’s House hums with graduation-night noise, cups clinking and music thudding through the rich old rooms of the Old Orleans outskirts. Outside, the city still flashes with distant gunfire, but in here, the party is all laughter and sweaty relief.

Benjamin stands near the open living room, bat in hand, taking in the crowd of college students, old friendships, and borrowed bravado. Jenny is by the window, gun low at her side. Louis leans over the table, eyeing the front hall like he expects trouble to walk in.

A hard bang hits the front door. Not music. Not a joke. The room goes thin and silent around the sound.

Then comes a dragging scrape from the hall, wet and slow, followed by a second удар against the wood. Jenny snaps her pistol up. Louis steps between the table and the entry, feathers bristling.

Benjamin lifts two fingers and gives Louis a sharp sideways point toward the hall. Louis catches it at once and shifts back, clearing the line to the door.

Benjamin steps in close, bat held low, and angles his face to the peephole. The wood shudders under another hit, rattling the brass ring beneath his hand.

Through the peephole, the porch light cuts a small, warped circle of the front steps. A body is pressed against the door, not a stranger in clean clothes, but a blood-smeared figure with slack shoulders and a dead, working jaw.

Louis leans in behind Benjamin, braced and ready, while another wet scrape drags across the wood from the other side.