For the first time in some hours, he heard a new sound: a voice. His heart expanded in his throat. He felt sick.

He was relieved. Apprehensive. Exhausted. More than anything, he was ever mindful of the scraping around the corner -- couldn't she hear it? He spun on one trained foot and lunged toward her house.

Then stopped.

"Please!" he panted, bent at the waist with trembling hands on his knees. "I'm being followed and I don't know what..." He gulped his desperation and looked up at the woman lost in the shadow of her doorway. "Can I come in?"

--

Carmo stumbled back when the towering man [i]lunged[/i] at her. She bit out a curse, steadying herself on the door frame. His words spun through her mind as she scrambled to process them. He was sopping wet and there was a manic edge to his voice, and for an instant she regretted drawing his attention. 

"Wha- no!" Carmo knew how to take care of herself, but she wasn't an idiot. She leaned away from him, trying to get out of reach in case he tried to grab her, but she doubted it'd do much luck, lanky bastard that he was. "Who's chasing you? What's wrong?"

--

The raised hood twisted, looking between the street and the woman again. The sound of steel on blacktop dug into the roots of his teeth.

"I don't know. It's got...claws? That's all I could see. Please...I just need somewhere to hide for...maybe half an hour." He ran his hand over his wounded right shoulder again, disappointed but not surprised when he found it as sticky as ever. Even as the rain beat down against the gash, his blood felt unmistakably thick between his fingers. "And...maybe some bandages. That's all, I promise."

--

Carmo froze at his answer. [i]Claws[/i]? What sort of– but then her eyes widened when she realized why he was holding his shoulder so tightly. Blood, inky black in the night, seeped between his fingers and stained his ruined coat. It was then that she finally heard the scraping.

"Shit," she bit out. Jamming her hand into her pocket, she fished out her keys and scrambled to open the door. "Inside!" she commanded, all but shoving the stranger through the door. Once they were both inside, she slammed the door shut, the automatic lock clicking into place. The door did nothing to dull the scraping sound, but Carmo did her best to ignore it. She reached in her pocket again for – she'd left her phone in her room. Letting out a sound that was some mix between a groan and a growl, she spun back to the stranger. "Upstairs. We need to get away from the door."

--

Wiping his hand on his jeans, the man pulled out his own phone -- still at a respectable 67% charge -- and awoke the screen. Light on his size 12 feet, he dashed through the living room and leapt up the staircase, five steps at a time behind the ghostly blue glow of his phone's LED.