Adrian Cross had promised to build me a safe house, and now he stared at ground he could not break. We had run for three days. We slept under open sky, and the men who wanted me hurt were somewhere behind us. Adrian owned no axe, no saw, no nails. He owned two hands and a plan he had not yet made. He crouched by the treeline and pressed his palm to the dirt. "I can do this," he said. His blue eyes did not lift to meet mine. His soft hair hung damp with sweat. "You will sleep under a roof tonight. I swear it." He walked to a wild grove nearby. It hung heavy with flowers and fruit, more color than any orchard I had seen. Adrian did not eat. He tore long vines from the trunks and coiled them over his shoulder. He snapped fallen branches to test which held weight. He worked fast, checking the sky, because the light was already sliding toward evening. He dragged the branches to a low rise and drove the thickest ones into the soft earth with a stone. He lashed them with the vines. His hands bled where the bark cut him. He did not stop. He leaned poles against each other and bound them at the top until they held their own weight. An orange animal watched from the grass. It was built like a large dog, but striped like a tiger, with a thick furred tail. It did not run. It kept its eyes on the treeline behind us, ears turned back, guarding the direction we had come from. Adrian noticed and worked faster. By dusk he had a frame. He wove broad leaves and vines through the poles until the walls closed. He packed the gaps with mud from the grove. When rain came, it would shed. When wind came, it would hold. He stepped back and looked at the small shelter he had made from nothing but his hands and what the land gave him. "It is not much," he said. "But it is ours. No one gave it to us. No one can take it." I crawled inside. The floor was dry. The roof held. For the first time in three days, I was not under open sky. But the striped animal did not lie down. It stood at the shelter's mouth, tail low, a growl building in its chest. It stared back toward the trees we had come through. Adrian went still. He heard it too. Voices. Far off, but moving closer. The men had not lost our trail. Adrian picked up the stone he had used to drive the poles and stepped between me and the sound. "Stay inside," he said. "They found us."

Adrian stood in the shelter's mouth with only a stone in his fist. The voices grew louder in the trees. I saw his knuckles whiten. One rock would not stop three men. He knew it too. His eyes moved fast across the ground, searching for anything sharper, anything that could hold them back. The striped animal stepped forward. It planted itself between Adrian and the trees. Its shoulders were broad, its coat bright orange and black. A low growl rolled from its chest. Adrian looked at it, then at me. "It stayed," he said. "It could have run. It stayed." He made his choice. He dropped to one knee beside the animal and pressed his bloody palm to its neck. "You guard her," he said. "With me." The animal did not pull away. It leaned into his hand. Its ears turned toward the voices, then back to Adrian, waiting. A man broke through the treeline. He carried a long knife and a coil of rope. Two more stepped out behind him. They saw the shelter. They saw me inside. The first man smiled and started forward. The striped animal launched itself across the clearing. It hit the first man at the chest and drove him down. The knife spun from his hand into the grass. Adrian ran for the blade. He snatched it up before the second man could reach it. Now he had steel. Now he was not helpless. The animal held the first man pinned, jaws at his throat, snarling. The second man raised his own club. Adrian moved between him and the shelter. He held the knife low and steady. "Come closer," Adrian said. His voice did not shake. "See what happens." The third man looked at the pinned body, at the snarling animal, at the blade in Adrian's fist. He grabbed the club-man's arm. "Not tonight," he said. They dragged their fallen friend back and vanished into the trees. The sound of their running faded. Adrian did not chase them. He stood until the woods went quiet. Then he knelt and cleaned the knife on the grass. The striped animal padded back and sat at his side, tail curling around its paws. Adrian rested his hand on its head. "We hold this place now," he told me. "The three of us." He turned the knife in the last of the light. Then his face changed. "They will come back. With more men. And they know we are here." He looked at the small shelter of mud and vines. "This will not stop a real attack. We need walls that stone cannot break. A door that locks." He was already picturing it. Not branches. A house. Somewhere no hunter could reach me at all.