Author's Notes: This is a Dresden Fanfic, in that I will be working in the Dresden-verse, but I currently have no plans to include any characters or events from the main timeline. This story will take place in and around Denver, so running into people shouldn't pose much of a problem.

The timeline would be concurrent with Changes, or possibly just after Changes, and before Ghost Story.

The Dresden Files are, of course, the property of Jim Butcher.


I ran like a bitch.

I'm not a coward or anything. I mean I grew up in East LA. I can't remember how many times I've been mugged or beat down. I wasn't just a victim either; I like to think that I gave as good as I got. That's a lie of course, but I did enough that I could hold my head up at the end of the day. I was never in a gang or anything, but I had friends who would back me. I had some enemies too. Looking back, I have no fuckin clue what we were fighting over. But still, I came out of it okay.

You end up thinkin you're pretty tough after all that. Guys would say "I've been in this many fights" or "I spent two years in county", or whatever. I've stood my ground against guys who were bigger than me, stood my ground when I was outnumbered and knew damned well I was gonna lose. I've had guns pointed at me. Shit, in my neighborhood, that's just something that happens.

This was different. Some junkie pulls a gun on you, it's cause he wants cash. He doesn't want to use it. Even the bangers don't really want to shoot you. They're probably not gonna do it unless you give em a reason. Long as you don't disrespect them, long as you keep your head down, you should be fine. But this thing...

Shit. You could tell. From the second it came through that door, it wanted only one thing. It was gonna kill me, and probably eat me after. I didn't know what it was, and I damned sure didn't care. It had dark brown skin, not like me or anything, more like tanned leather that was left out too long, but it was loose. Flabby. It's mouth was huge. At the time I would have sworn you could have parked a minivan in there. Really it was probably only big enough to swallow my head. Either way, with the giant teeth, the drool dangling from its lower jaw, the ear splitting screech that it was throwing out, all I could think about was getting the hell out of there.

Sure, it was ugly, but that wasn't the worst of it. The worst part was that it looked almost human. Like some mad scientist had taken some homeless guy and infused him with a whole bag of ugly.

You might be thinking that you'd have pulled your gun; gave it one between the eyes; something like that. Hell, you might have. Of course, if you ever were in that situation, and you did, well, you probably wouldn't be around to reading this.

So, yeah, I ran like a bitch. I'm not afraid to say it. I'd do it again. There are just some things out there that a guy like me wasn't meant to deal with.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. You're probably wondering how I got there.

There was this girl, see...