Nia had decided to hate the redhead before she even learned her name. Two days ago, at the edge of Greenhaven Park, she had watched Osana Najimi snap at a boy she called Taro. Nia hadn't heard the words. She had only seen the boy's shoulders drop and his face go flat. That was enough. Clarissa's whole circle trusted this stranger, and Nia didn't buy it. She sat on a park bench now, a pink sketchbook open on her knee, drawing silver letters she didn't feel. Behind the rhinestones and the glitter pen, one plan ran in her head: watch Osana, prove she was cruel. But she had no reason to go near her. You can't study someone you aren't allowed to stand next to. Then a cat solved it for her. An orange tabby trotted across the grass, a pink bow at her throat. She stopped at Nia's shoe and looked up. A pink phone buzzed on the bench beside Nia, dropped and forgotten, covered in white polka dots. A little cat charm swung from its corner. Nia glanced at the screen. The lock photo was the same tabby staring back at her. "Poppy. There you are." Osana crossed the lawn fast, twin-tails swinging to her knees. She scooped the cat up with both arms, careful, almost gentle. Up close her orange eyes landed on the phone in Nia's hand, then on Nia. "That's mine," Osana said. No thank you. No softness. Just the fact. Here it was. Nia opened her mouth to say something sharp about the boy, about Taro. Before she could, Liz dropped onto the bench beside her, breathing hard, grips still strapped to her hands from the gym. "You found Poppy," Liz said to Osana. "Good. She bolts every time." Then, flat, to Nia: "You're giving her the death stare again." "She yelled at that boy," Nia said. "I saw it." Osana went still. "Taro?" Her jaw tightened. "Taro let a car door slam on Poppy's tail last week and laughed. So yeah. I yelled." She set the cat down, took her phone from Nia's fingers, and didn't look away. "You can hate me on better facts." Liz shrugged. "That's it. That's the whole story." Nia's face went hot. She had built a case on four seconds and a stranger's dropped shoulders. The glitter pen felt stupid in her grip. Poppy pressed her head against Nia's ankle, purring. Osana watched the cat choose her, and something in the hard orange eyes shifted. "You draw?" Osana nodded at the sketchbook. "The pink one at the shelter needs flyers. Cats. Saturday." She paused. "Come or don't." It was an invitation. The exact thing Nia had wanted and could no longer use the way she'd planned. She had her way in now. She just didn't know anymore what she'd find when she took it. "I'll come," Nia said.