The once abandoned warehouse, its ceiling still filled with cobwebs and dust, was bustling with movement now. Individuals moved back and forth between groups of people that filled the space, delivering meals, blankets, first aid supplies, and anything else they had been able to find or acquire. There was no furniture in the space, no lighting that still had power and no running water. To light the space, handheld flashlights and candles were precariously positioned or held by those walking around, and any water they had had been collected in old, dirty barrels from the rain that poured down. They dared not go out in search of cleaner water, food, or anything else.

Clutching a pile of dusty blankets, Bella walked slowly between groups of people who were seated on the floor, huddled closely together to keep warm despite the bitter early-spring cold that still loomed. “Blankets, anyone?” she offered, crouching low beside the group and offering the blankets, dimly illuminated by a single wick candle that burned in the middle of their feet. A little girl, no older than ten, lifted her head from what Bella assumed to be her mother’s shoulder, and reached out for one of the blankets. “Thank you.” came the voice of the mother, who didn’t open her eyes to look at Bella.

Bella stood slowly, her knees and back aching from the amount of bending and crouching she had been doing these last few days. The hunter raids had been getting more and more common in the little town they inhabited over the last months, and now the raids seemed to be near constant. Daily, new shifters would arrive at the warehouse; some wounded, others on the run, and more who were hiding before the hunters found them, too. Those who had already arrived at the warehouse wouldn’t leave, but often asked newcomers what was going on outside the cold brick walls that kept the rest safe. Every day, they heard the same stories: Hunters perusing the establishments which were run and frequented by shifters, burning down houses and buildings that were either owned by shifters or rumoured to be housing them. Hunters roamed the streets, armed and ready to pick a fight, always in groups of three or more, always ready to act first and forget to ask questions. Neighbours turning in neighbours, step parents turning over step-children. It really had become every man, woman, or child, for themselves. Everywhere but the warehouse, it seemed.

Bella had turned her attention to the next group, seated on the floor a few feet over from the first. This group was full of young girls and boys, barely old enough to be in high school, and one ancient woman with grey hair and grey eyes that had long ago lost the ability to see. As she approached the group, her eyes still on the older woman, the woman spoke in a voice barely above a whisper:

“Yes, child, we’d love a blanket. But first, come here, dear,” the older woman beckoned Bella forward with the curl of one finger, and Bella went to her, kneeling beside the woman, stunned and more than a little confused. With a shaking hand, the woman reached up, her hand missing the blankets. Bella opened her mouth to speak, but the older woman shook her head, a slight smile playing on her lips.

“You’ve got a friend, child, look!” The woman’s hand grazed softly across Bella’s shoulder blade, and then she brought her hand forward for the group to see. All the children around her were watching intently. On the woman’s hand was a spider. A large spider, with many eyes that glinted in the candlelight and long, hairy legs, sat unmoving in the middle of the woman’s palm for a second before one of the children jumped to their feet, a hand raised.

“Nana Rosa! Kill it!” she shrieked.

As if the spider understood, it took off, moving up Rosa's arm and disappeared into the loose sleeve of her sweater. Bella got to her feet, taking a step back from the group. She hated spiders.

“Constance!” Rosa scolded. “She is here for protection, just like the rest of us. You wouldn’t want to be squished, neither does the spider. You will leave her be.”

“Yes, of course, Nana Rosa.” said another child, a boy, who helped Constance back into her seat on the floor beside Rosa. The boy turned his eyes to Bella, and said “Thank you.” Bella took that as her cue, and nodded farewell to the boy. She turned around, looking for the rickety metal steps that would take her up to the catwalks that ran midway up the building. Only one of those catwalks led anywhere; the others had either fallen down, or the rooms they ran to were locked. The one room that was accessible, they used to store things like extra blankets, food, and candles. She was heading towards that room, goosebumps on her arms from the thought of that massive spider being on her back.

“Keiran,” she said as she shouldered open the door into their elevated storage room. Keiran was a new friend of hers, someone she had met about a week before when there were still only a handful of them hiding in the warehouse. Now there were more than twenty, and that count had been done two days ago.

Standing in the corner of the room, with a flashlight between his teeth, stood Keiran, rummaging through a cardboard box full of canned food. He let out a sigh, and turned to face her. “We’re going to run out of food.” He said inevitably. “Half of what we’ve got is already out of date, and the other half is going to go soon… Even if it didn’t, we don’t have enough to feed this many mouths for more than a few days.” He was facing her now, his hands gripping a table behind him as he leaned back against it. He looked exhausted; dark bags were easy to see under his eyes even in the poor lighting, and his cheeks were beginning to look hollow.

“We can’t keep going like this, Bella. If the Hunters find us, we’re sitting ducks. Most of them are either too old or too young to fight, and they’re all starving. We’re weak, we’re wounded, and we’re running out of supplies.”

“We need another plan. A better plan.” she hadn’t meant for it to come off harsh.

“You think I don’t see that? When you came to me for shelter, I let you in. I had plenty of food and provisions for myself, enough to share. But I didn’t think I’d be sharing with half the damn town!” he spun abruptly, throwing the flashlight he had been holding into a metal wall. It hit with a metallic thud that anyone in the warehouse would have heard, and fell to the floor broken, leaving the pair in complete darkness.

“Keiran,-”

“Don’t. I’m sorry,” he sighed, and she could picture him pinching the bridge of his nose. He had done this most times he sighed since she had met him. “I’m sorry. It’s not your fault, and I’m not blaming you. These people need help, I just don’t know how to do it anymore… But if I don’t help them, who will, Bella?” she could hear the grief in his voice, the hopelessness. He had taken responsibility for so many lives, opening his secret hiding place to anyone who needed to be hidden. She felt for him, and she had been about to reply to him when the screech of protesting metal came from one of the huge bay doors along the far end of the warehouse. A door that they, nor the shifters they housed, would have opened. Bella and Keiran ran out of the storage room, thundering down the noisy metal stairs, going to meet who, or what, ever had opened the door.