Fog curled through the Tenderloin like cigarette smoke—wet, dirty, and stinking of rot. A woman in a thrift store coat moved fast down the sidewalk, purse clutched to her chest. She didn't look back. She could hear him breathing, feel his stare on her, but she pressed on.

  The man behind her didn't care that it was public. Not really. This part of the city didn't belong to the cops anymore. No one was coming to help.

  She turned down an alley—wrong move.

  Dead end.

  "Hey," he said, voice like gravel in motor oil. "You lost?"

  She turned, eyes wide.

  He smiled and took a step forward.

  Then something hit the ground behind him with a crack. He turned but it was too te. Goliath was already moving like an animal let off the chain.

  The first strike came low—blindingly fast. A cwed hand raked across the man's shin with a sickening snap. He buckled with a scream, and Goliath was already on him.

  Snarling.

  Feral.

  Five feet and seven inches of monstrous muscle smmed into the stalker, cws fshing in the dark. One punch, driven by anger, caved his face in. Goliath's wrath ripped through the man's colrbone like paper. The woman screamed and stumbled back against the wall as blood sprayed her coat.

  He leapt, using the wall for momentum, and drove his two fist down into the man's face with a force that cratered the pavement. Blood spttered the alley walls in thick arcs. He grabbed his throat and crushed his windpipe with a cruel crunch, then Goliath crouched over the limp body and began to feast.

  The woman screamed and stumbled against the brick, her coat soaked in someone else's blood, ears filled with the sickening sounds of gnawing and ripping.

  Goliath was panting hard, steam rising off his back as he devoured the body. His red-stained goggles fred in the dark. Wild curls clung to his face, sticky with sweat and gore. Blood dripped from his chin, thick ropes of it trailing onto the ground.

  He turned to the woman. She didn't move. Goliath sniffed the air—something faintly floral, her perfume. The stink of fear sobered him. Laboured pants slowed into soft breathes, Goliath shrunk within himself in the hopes he would look less intimidating.

  He reached into the mangled coat of the corpse, pulled out a blood-soaked wad of bills, and tossed it at her feet. He was cautious not to get too close and scare her.

  "Um... Here," he uttered. Almost a plea, like the woman scared him "For the metro."

  She ran, shoes spping the concrete.

  Goliath stayed behind, still crouched. He brought one bloodied glove to his mouth and licked it slow, savoring the metallic tang. The rich taste eased the anxiety and guilt. Then, like a bad feeling you want to bury, he scaled the wall and vanished into the dark above.

  On the other side of the city, under the 101 freeway, four men reeking of liquor ughed as they tore through a homeless encampment.

  "Get a fuckin job, losers!" one of them yelled, smashing a ntern with his boot. A tent caught fire. People scattered. One man screamed as they dragged him out by his bnket.

  High above, Arachnid watched with narrowed eyes from the underside of a rusted overpass beam. The protective lense from his fitted mask glinted in the firelight. He sat casually upside-down, clinging to the concrete like it was nothing. Arachnid calcuted his next moves from the shadows.

  He dropped.

  No warning. No words.

  Just a shape falling like a guillotine.

  The first man's jaw shattered on impact. The second was pinned to a signpost in a web before he could react. The third reached for a gun—

  Cute, Arachnid thought, snapping his wrist with a clinical crack.

  The only one left ran and Arachnid didn't care enough to chase. This wasn't why he was here, though it was a good thing he came.

  As Arachnid webbed down the small fire, a few of the unhoused peeked out from their hiding pces. A balding dust covered man in tattered clothes stepped forward. He greeted Arachnid with a dap. He used small vents in his palms to light a joint with a hiss of pressurized air. Arachnid leaned against a wall.

  "Wassup, Smokey," he breathed. "you wanted to talk?"

  "You keep racking up bodies like this," Smokey muttered, "you're gonna run outta assholes to kill."

  Arachnid shrugged. "There's always more."

  "Word is there's some in Fillmore," Smokey added. "Back-alley raves. Real dark shit. Girls show up in bad shape. End up missing. You hear about that rich tech guy? With the self-driving cars? Might be his ring."

  Arachnid took the joint, hit it once. "Imma check it out,"

  He tossed Smokey a silver dinged up key fob. "Honda Civic out back. Yours."

  Then he was gone, slipping into the night like smoke off the tip of a blunt.

  Morning came dirty and loud.

  The small apartment off Haight Street buzzed with noise. Coffee sputtered out an old machine sounding like a dying engine, someone shower-singing, someone else cursing at a cracked phone screen.

  Lenny blinked awake, tangled in sheets. His body ached. A good pain, heavy and grounding. Remmy's arm was draped across his waist, warm and familiar.

  He stared at the ceiling. His muscles groaned from patrol.

  Not work. Not school. Not life.

  Patrol.

  Lenny Anae—art student, part-time hospital janitor, trans disaster—had a secret: after dark, when he was Goliath, he didn't feel powerless.

  He felt alive.

  "You're thinking too hard," Remmy mumbled, eyes still closed.

  "I have css," Lenny whispered, trying to slide out of bed.

  Remmy held him there a beat longer. "Skip it, monkey," Remmy clung tight, smothering Lenny with kisses hoping to bribe him with affection.

  "Damn, you right," Lenny giggled "But what if Kanye comes to one of the mutant rallies on campus and I can't see him say a slur in person?"

  "Man fuck Kanye," Remmy scoffed, voice thick with sleep. "I'll say a slur."

  Lenny kissed his cheek and rolled out. Remmy stayed in bed, pretending to doze as he listened to his boyfriend get ready for the day. They both take the same bus, but it always takes Lenny three times as long to get dressed. He pretended not to notice the dried blood on Lennys cheek.

  By 8:00 AM, they stood together at the bus stop. Lenny wore denim overalls, a rainbow crop top, and twin pigtails that brushed his waist. Remmy leaned against the shelter in a faded bomber jacket over his security uniform, nursing a soda and clicking his chipped lighter open and shut. They didn't talk much on the ride. They didn't have to.

  Lenny leaned into Remmy's side like it was instinct, head resting on his shoulder, eyes half-lidded behind pink sungsses. Their bodies fit together like a secret only they understood. They sat in comfortable silence, occasionally gncing at each other with looks that said more than words ever could. Shared smiles, soft eye rolls, little smirks. They were having an entire conversation no one else could hear.

  At the college campus, Remmy split off toward the security office. Lenny wandered toward the main hall, dodging flyers and activists.

  "Protect Mutant Lives" one sign read.

  "Save Fillmore Girls" said another.

  Lenny hid the sudden pang of guilt behind bubblegum-pink sungsses. He saw pain in every corner of the city and had no idea how to stop it.

  But Goliath?

  Goliath didn't ask questions. He just acted.

  Almost enough.

  Lenny tripped over his own feet. A familiar voice caught him before the ground did.

  "How do you even fall like that? You're already so close to the floor."

  Zil, Lennys younger sister, handed him a chai tea tte. Baggy grey sweats. Bleached green hoodie. No judgment, just caffeine.

  "I'm tall enough to bust your kneecaps," Lenny muttered.

  They walked to css together, drinks in hand.

  "My friend's cousin got jumped st night," Lenoard said casually. "Just for having a tail. I thought the city was supposed to be progressive and shit."

  "What a wild way to start a conversation," Lenny replied, half-ughing.

  The state of the world concerned him more than he let on. He'd kept his own mutant gene a secret his whole life. Only close family members knew. But nobody knew about Goliath.

  In the second half of the morning, Lenny sat cross-legged beside Zil in their shared art css, a blur of color on canvas keeping his hands busy while his mind wandered. The hum of dryers, the faint scrape of pencils, and half-focused conversations filled the room. It was one of those soft days—paints drying, people chatting. No urgency. Just breathing space.

  "Y'all go out st night?" someone asked from the other side of the table.

  "Went to the Castro," said a girl with vender braids. "Too many finance bros, not enough femboys."

  "I stayed in," another said. "Watched that new esekai. Shit popped off."

  "My sister almost didn't make it home," said a guy in a faded fnnel, his voice low. Lenny discreetly shifted his focus from the canvas to this conversation. "Some freak followed her from Montgomery and tried to do something to her but like this mutant came outta nowhere."

  Lenny's fingers tensed around his paintbrush. He didn't look up. Just dipped into crimson, smeared it into the middle of his canvas, and tried to breathe evenly.

  "Scary-ass chick," the guy continued, shaking his head. "Said she crushed the dude's throat with her bare hands."

  "Jesus," someone whispered.

  "Holy shit," another added. "Honestly, good for her. Kill all men type shit,"and a wave of uneasy ughter rippled around the table.

  Zil didn't ugh. Lenny didn't either.

  He kept his eyes on the red bleeding across his canvas. The shape wasn't even coherent anymore. Just something raw and messy.

  They talked about Goliath like a monster and a miracle in the same breath. They were gd that creep got what he deserved, but they didn't see the woman after. How she froze, paralyzed with fear, blood in her shes. How she screamed.

  They didn't know how long he'd thought about this, guilt gnawing at him more viciously than hunger. How he'd licked blood from his glove and felt calm instead of remorse.

  Lenny blinked hard, painting over the red.

  Zil bumped his knee with hers under the table, like she could feel something was wrong with her brother.

  He bumped her back. Smiled without looking. Kept painting.

  Kept pretending it hadn't felt good.

  Lenny met Remmy ter for lunch—him with a cheap cafeteria steak bowl, Remmy with a personal pizza and a pile of fries.

  "Tomorrow's the Antioch thing," Lenny said.

  Remmy raised a brow. "We're really gonna go?"

  "They're family."

  "They're transphobic brokies and they're gonna ask you for money again"

  Lenny sighed. "But the food's good."

  Remmy rolled his eyes "They won't even have anything vegetarian. They just have BBQ and samoan food"

  "Oooh palusami..."

  They made pns to catch BART early the next morning.

  That night, Remmy went to an old garage in the Mission to meet up with a contact named Koda —a car nut and occasional thief. The stolen Civic from st night was stripped to the bones, already half sold.

  Remmy walked away with five grand in dirty bills and a new lead: Fillmore's fentanyl trade was wrapped up in underground raves. Trafficked women forced to mule drugs inside their bodies. Some were filmed. Most weren't seen again, except for in dark web snuff videos.

  "Rich people pay good money for pain," Koda said.

  Remmy didn't answer. Just lit a cigarette and walked into the dark.

  At home, the apartment buzzed again. The roommates were pying a chaotic board game with too many pieces and not enough rules. Someone passed a vape. Someone else pyed nightcore music from a phone in a cup.

  Remmy walked in, tossing his jacket onto a chair.

  "Where's Lenny?" one asked.

  "Hospital shift," Remmy replied. "Keep the door unlocked, he's gonna get home te."