The rain came down in sheets, steady and unrelenting, drumming against the rooftops like the city itself was holding its breath. Somewhere far below, car horns wailed and tires hissed along flooded streets, but up here, in the half-forgotten attic room at the top of a five-story walk-up, the world was quieter—closer.
A ginger cat sat just inside the open doorway to the roof, half-shielded from the downpour. Its fur was fluffed against the chill, one hind leg kicked high as it licked between its toes with the slow, deliberate rhythm of an animal that had seen too much to be easily startled.
The city blurred beyond the streaming rain, an impressionist painting of chimneys, aerials, and dripping concrete. But then the cat's ears flicked.
Something moved.
A shape—dark, fast—launched across the rooftops like it belonged there. The figure flowed from edge to ledge, rolling, vaulting, rebounding off vents and drainpipes with impossible ease. Water sprayed from soaked clothes with every twist of the body, but the momentum never stopped. The city's edges were a playground, and this figure had mastered its language.
The cat paused mid-lick, eyes narrowing.
Closer now. The figure ducked under a low parapet, used the slick curve of a domed skylight as a springboard, then spun across the rusted spine of a fire escape. She—yes, the cat saw it now, the cut of her body in soaked fabric, the curve of her jaw under the shadow of a hood—was heading straight for him.
She reached the final rooftop and stopped just before the gap. Rain poured from her sleeves as she flexed her fingers. Then she leapt.
The cat darted back with a startled mrrowr! as boots landed in the exact spot it had just occupied. She landed low and soft, like she'd been born in mid-air. Striking the typical superhero pose we have all seen.
"Hello, puss," she said, her voice soft but playful. "Missed me?"
She pulled her hood back. Her face was striking—heart-shaped, angelic—but offset by the short, damp crop of platinum hair and a silver ring glittering through her eyebrow. A nose stud, a line of tiny hoops climbing one ear, and the confidence to wear them all. She wasn't hiding. She dared you to look.
Then she shook herself violently, like a dog after a swim, sending a spray of water across the attic floor.
The cat blinked at her, unimpressed.
She laughed under her breath and stepped further into the room, the door creaking shut behind her.
And just like that, she was back.
She unzipped the hoodie, steam rising faintly from the soaked fabric as she peeled it off and draped it over the iron bedframe. Underneath, a cropped black tank top clung to her skin, the lines of old scars faintly visible on her shoulder and along one side—white against pale flesh.
The cat circled her once, tail flicking, then leapt up onto the windowsill, still watching.
"You going to sulk all night?" she asked, tossing a glance over her shoulder. "Or do I get the usual silent treatment?"
The cat blinked once. Slowly.
She smirked. "Yeah. I missed you too."
She wandered to the desk, brushing her fingers along the dusty edge of an old lamp. A cold wind threaded through the broken glass pane beside it. She reached down, picked up a yellowing envelope from the cluttered surface, and turned it over in her hands.
"Still here," she murmured, voice quieter now. "Same room. Same rain. Same cat. Like nothing's changed."
She tucked the envelope into her bag without opening it.
Behind her, the cat gave a faint chuff of breath, tail flicking once more.
She turned.
"Alright," she said. "You're wondering why I came back."
A pause.
"I'm wondering the same thing."
She leaned against the wall, her eyes tracking the rivulets of rain down the glass.
"They're looking for me," she said finally. "Up top, and down below. And probably somewhere in between."
She didn't need to clarify who they were. The way she said it—flat, almost amused—made it clear they weren't the type to knock politely. Trouble is she doesn't know who they are.
"I've got maybe a day. Two if I'm lucky. I need something that's buried here. And I think… I think someone left a necklace."
She crouched beside the cat, rain still dripping from her hair. Her eyes searched his.
"You always were good at finding things."
She smiled and stood up with a resolved look.
"So, want to help me dig up a secret?"
She crouched beside the cat again, staring at the floorboards like they might give her an answer. Rain tapped gently against the broken pane, quieter now, the storm easing into a tired drizzle.
"You probably don't remember," she said softly, reaching out to scratch behind the cat's ear. "But this place… this room… it saved me once."
Her fingers moved across the floor, brushing away years of dust until she found the loose board near the edge of the bed. She worked it free, fingers trembling just a little—not from cold.
Beneath it, wrapped in a torn strip of oilcloth, was something small and weighty.
She lifted it out and unwrapped it slowly.
A necklace. A simple black cord and a pendant the size of a coin—weathered brass, engraved with a symbol so worn it looked ancient. The metal caught the low light, dull but still warm to the touch.
Her breath hitched.
She stared at it like it might speak.
"I don't know what it means," she murmured. "But he said it was mine. That it mattered. That someone—somewhere—would be looking for it. For me."
She clenched it in her fist, eyes shut for a moment, letting the memories come.
A cold hallway in a children's home. Rain-streaked windows and quiet footsteps. Hands that fed her, hands that took her.
A family that had called her "daughter" like it was a curse.
Chores without end. Bruises that didn't fade. A man who smiled too wide and came too close.
The crash of glass. The weight of the fire poker in her hands.
The silence afterward.
The road north. Sleeping in parks, skipping meals. Trying to disappear into the noise of Birmingham, then drifting south again like a ghost with nowhere left to haunt.
Until him.....
He'd found her behind a skip near Victoria Station, curled up and half-starved. Eight years old. Beautiful, he'd said—but not in the way other men had said it. Not with hunger in his eyes.
He'd offered her a sandwich. Then a coat. Then a way in.
Not through a door. But across a roof.
The attic room had been theirs. A secret high above the city, where nobody could reach her.
He taught her to fight, to vanish, to climb like she was part shadow. She never asked why he knew how to teach those things. He never said.
And then one day, he didn't come back.
She opened her eyes, blinking the sting away. The necklace lay against her palm like a question mark.
"I thought maybe you'd have answers," she said to the cat, her voice steadier now. "But I guess I was wrong."
The cat stretched, bored of all her drama, and wandered to the far side of the room and lazily returned to cleaning itself.
She slipped the necklace over her head, tucking the pendant beneath her shirt. It felt heavier now—like it remembered things she didn't. Memories long gone.
She stood and rolled her shoulders, as if shaking off the weight of memory.
"I'm not here to mourn," she said aloud. "I'm here to finish something he started."
She walked to the open door and looked out across the city.
London sprawled before her—slick rooftops, blinking lights, the dull hum of everything waiting to wake up.
Something in it was calling her. Or someone. Possibly it was just her wishful thinking.
She just had to survive long enough to find out who. Friend or foe.
The rooftops were slick with rain, but to her they were familiar ground—like old scars you forget are there until the light hits them just right.
"Nonya," she whispered to herself, trying it on again like it was still new. Like it still fit.
A name built from spite and survival. She liked that it confused people. Made them blink. Made them hesitate. She gave a little laugh. Nonya business.
She turned back to the room—their room—and scanned it with different eyes now. Soldier's eyes. Tracker's eyes. She hadn't just come for a trip down memory lane.
She came for him.
For what he left behind.
He'd promised her. A promise made to a twelve year old who cried into his chest over a nightmare she couldn't explain, he'd held her close and whispered: "You didn't come from nothing, Princess. You were left, not lost. One day, we'll find out who did that to you. Who you really are."
He'd made her believe it.
And then—just like that—he vanished.
No note. No warning. Just one night, she came back to the attic on leave from her regiment, and found the space cold and empty. Like the man had been scraped out of the world.
Well now she was back. Five years harder. Five years meaner. Trained, dangerous, still beautiful—though she'd long since learned to use that like a weapon, too.
The cat mewed softly from the sill, breaking her thoughts.
"Yeah," she murmured. "You probably thought I wouldn't come back."
She crouched beside the old mattress, lifted the edge, and felt around the frame. Nothing. Then she crawled to the radiator, where the bricks behind it were loose, and pried one free.
Behind it—mildewed paper. A roll of them. Old, brittle, and bound with string.
She pulled them out gently, heart suddenly hammering.
On the top sheet, in blocky, confident handwriting, was a heading:
"The Girl With the Pendant – Clues to Her Origin"
Her breath caught.
Below it, dates. Maps. Names she didn't recognize. German cities. Orphanages. A photo of a woman with the same angular jaw as hers, circled in red.
He had been looking and something told her he'd found something too close to the truth.
That's why he vanished.
The sound of a siren whined somewhere in the distance, far below. Ambulance by the tones sound.
She stood slowly, the papers pressed against her chest.
"I'm not running anymore," she said quietly.
Then she looked at the cat.
"You coming with me, or you staying up here pretending you don't care?"
The cat blinked once. Then jumped down and padded to her side.
She smiled, just a little.
"Good choice."
She sat cross-legged on the dusty floor as the storm passed, the last drops of rain dripping from the rafters and the edge of the slanted skylight. Papers were spread out in front of her like a spider's web—clues, theories, fragments of a puzzle a missing man had once believed mattered.
He'd chased everything. Old hospital records from Berlin. Passenger logs from the Dover-Calais ferry. A page from a Catholic orphanage in Bremen—dated two weeks before she was found in the UK system. Too much for coincidence. Too much to ignore.
She ran her fingers across the photo again—the woman with the dark eyes and the too-familiar jawline. No name. Just "possible contact – 1999 – Kiel." Does this make me German she thought.
He'd been close. Maybe too close.
And someone hadn't wanted him to finish what he started.
She gathered the pages, careful not to smudge the water-damaged ink, stacking them in order. Then she reached for the cat, but her hand froze mid-air.
The escape pack. How could she have forgotten.
It was a joke at first. Something he'd teased her with after she got caught shoplifting for the third time and they had to lay low in an abandoned hotel for two days. He said every spy needed a bug-out bag. She'd said every princess needed a way out of the tower.
She stood and crossed the room, reaching behind the old cast-iron stove. A loose panel in the floor, almost invisible unless you knew where to press.
It popped up with a creak.
Inside was the oilcloth bundle.
She sat back on her heels, unwrapping it slowly.
A stack of bank books—each in a different name, but every one of them hers. Balances scrawled in pencil on the inside covers. A mix of accounts that hadn't been touched in years. Still active. She glance at the totals and quickly added them up. where did they get 2.4 million pounds from? Possibly more as the last update was 5 years ago and she knew that nearly all her pay was going into one.
Three passports. British, German, Irish. All with different identities. Different hair lengths. Different birth dates. But all her face.
A sealed envelope filled with used notes—bundles of twenties and fifties. Neatly counted into wads of 1000 quid.
Nine thousand pounds.
And tucked beneath it all—small, heavy, cold.
A Beretta M1934. Worn grip. Clean barrel. Still oiled. Ready.
She stared at it for a long time.
Then she rewrapped everything—papers, notes, the pistol—and tucked the bundle deep into the front pouch of her hoodie, pulling the fabric down to hide its shape.
She picked up the cat at last, cradling it under one arm. It made a faint sound of protest but didn't squirm.
"Come on, Puss" she whispered. "Back door's still open."
She walked to the edge of the doorway, the wind brushing the drying strands of her hair back from her face. The rain had stopped, but the night still smelled like wet iron and the mix of many foods from the restaurants below.
She set the cat down carefully on the ledge, fat thing could jump by itself, then stepped back inside.
Three steps. Four.
She exhaled.
Then she ran.
Her boots hit the floor hard—one-two-three—then she launched herself into the air, just like she had hundreds of times before, body arching toward the opposite roof.
The cat watched her.
And then—
CRACK.
The shot came from nowhere, clean and sharp, echoing off wet bricks and slates.
Pain exploded in her chest like lightning.
She gasped—choked—and her arms flailed midair as her body twisted.
Time slowed.
The cat let out a horrible, startled yowl.
She saw the sky, the edge of the roof, the void yawning below. And fell…