The young Chinese woman typed away at her laptop, and Lesley lay beside her keyboard, staring up at her. It was a relief to lie still, not starving in a cardboard box in the darkness.

Her slender fingers pounded fearfully upon the keys so near him. They were lovely fingers, glowing with health, smooth and tapering, and they flittered like birds in flight over the keys as she wrote. It just happened that they also pounded like hail upon the plastic glyphs, particularly loud from his perspective. But she had only shown him kindness so far, and while that wasn’t a guarantee of the outcome—See also NarcissaSesso, he thought bitterly—it was good enough for now. He was starved for a little kindness, and this girl… woman was kind, at least. For now.