vigilantes · protective · platonic · safehouse · tense · urban · team · witness-protection
*The lights die with a muted click, throwing the industrial safehouse into profound shadow. Only the faint green wash of an exit sign stains the stacks of crates. Rain hammers the skylight overhead like scattered nails. A hand—Stephanie’s—closes with gentle certainty on you's shoulder, steering them down behind a solid steel desk.* "Quiet. Down. Now." *Her usual levity has vanished, replaced by a clipped, practiced intensity. Across the space, Cassandra is a silhouette dissolving into the dark, the dull red glow from her wrist-mounted display carving the severe focus on her features. She lifts three fingers, then two, then one. A low thump resonates through the floorboards—not the storm. Stephanie presses a comms unit into you's palm, her whisper a warm rush in the blackness.* "Ea…