I accidentally wrote a continuation to Chapter 1. This is a direct continuation to the first chapter. Enjoy.

"So what's the plan for when he wakes up?" Tikki flitted around the interior of the small studio-style apartment, her soft glow illuminating things just enough to see.

"I have absolutely no idea." Marinette's eyes followed the Kwami around the room, scrutinizing the place Chat had brought her to.

The tip of a long furry tail twitched.

It wasn't the most amazing place. In fact the building might as well have been condemned, judging from the vacancy and the dilapidated state of the interior. A quick peek out into the hall had confirmed the vacant state of the building. Apartment doors were crooked on hinges, left open, or gone completely. The stairs leading to the lower floors were rotten and sagging in places, and the hand rail long missing.

"At least I don't see any rats." Marinette hugged her arms at the thought of the building being infested.

"Maybe Chat ate them all," Tikki giggled and grabbed her toes.

A floofy ear flicked.

"Gross! Don't say that."

"His breath did smell pretty awful," Tikki added thoughtfully.

"It was the cheese," Marinette defended on his behalf. "It was that rotten cheese he ate." She didn't even want to imagine her partner eating nasty rats that he caught in a nasty abandoned building. Her mouth had been on that mouth before. (Thankfully not since he'd been akumatized, but still.)

"From the way he ate that cheese, I suspect he hasn't eaten in a good long while."

A second ear twitched to life, brushing an eddy of dust off the floor.

Marinette felt her chest compress painfully as she spared her suffering partner a pitying look.

"Should we hang around to see if he coughs up another akuma, or leave him here and come back tomorrow?"

The storm that had been raging outside when she'd first woken up had worn itself out to a tired grumble. It was late at night, but if she transformed she could make it home before getting too drenched. There was a lull in the lightning. If she left now the risk of getting struck was significantly low.

Another twitch at the end of the tail, before the whole thing came alive with a sudden lashing movement.

Besides, her parents were probably worried sick, what with their daughter just up and disappearing after taking cheese out to the trash.

"It's probably best if we go home for now," said Tikki. "We can try to help him in the morning." She zipped across the room to settle on her host's shoulder.

Marinette gave her Kwami a soft smile and stroked the top of her head. "Yeah, I'm ready to get out of this place."

Sparing Chat one last glance, noting he was still unconscious and sprawled across the floor, she started for the exit. She had almost made it to the threshold when a floorboard betrayed her departure, creaking like a scream from the damned beneath her foot.

She froze despite herself. A shiver of terror she could only describe as instinctual slithered down her spine like cold gravy. It was the feeling one could only attribute to being hunted.

Marinette looked over her shoulder hoping to find Chat still unconscious.

Blazing magenta pierced the darkness, burning with the intensity of the molten rock. Large round pupils that should have been black as coals, burned an iridescent white, like will-o-wisps caught in a fiery hell.

He looked like a demon. The lucidity she'd seen before was nowhere to be found.

"Run," Tikki said quietly into her ear.

Marinette swallowed thickly. "What?" her voice barely a whisper.

Chat eyed her like a predator zeroing in on its prey.

The little red Kwami buried itself in her hair and hissed again with even more urgency. "Run, Marinette!"

Her feet were moving before her mind could even catch up. She threw herself at the door just as she saw Chat surge up from the floor in her peripheral vision.

Marinette didn't even look back, tumbling out the door of the apartment and booking it towards the stairwell at the edge of the landing.

Claws scraping in the apartment alerted her that Chat was already up. A terrifyingly low growl confirming that he was not feeling particularly friendly.

She took the stairs two at a time, wishing that handrail had still been intact.

The landing shook, alerting her that Chat had leapt out of the apartment after her.

"Shouldn't you be transforming?" Tikki called next to her ear.

"Not unless I want to reveal myself to Chat and Hawk Moth." Marinette reached the next floor and hopped over the gap to the next set of stairs. She could hear Chat already barreling down the steps above her.

"The alternative is being dead!"

"You really think Chat would kill me?" Her foot caught on a broken board, and she stumbled down the last few steps and onto the next landing. Thankfully, she recovered quickly and started for the next stairwell.

"I don't think Chat is sane right now," Tikki stressed. "The intentions I sensed radiating from his energy were borderline murderous."

"Maybe Hawk Moth finally took control of him?"

Wood splintered above them, and it sounded like Chat hit one of the rotten steps. His angry scream echoed through the building, and they could hear claws scrabbling against wood and metal.

"I think he's just gone feral," said Tikki. "That much pain is enough to drive anyone a little crazy."

She hit the ground floor, her luck still holding out given she's only stumbled a few times, and not enough to really slow her down.

Above her, the feral white Chat was still hot on her heels and closing in.

"Your definition of a little crazy and mine are wildly different, Tikki."

Marinette came up on the entrance to the front of apartment building and prayed that it wasn't locked.

Thankfully Tikki was already one step ahead of her, zipping out of her hair and phasing inside the door. Before Marinette's hand had even reached the door knob, the locks were clicking a release.

She didn't dare look over her shoulder and see how close Chat was. The hairs on the back of her neck were already telling her that he was far too near.

Without a moment of hesitation, she forced open the door and darted out, taking her first breath of fresh but wet night air.

Using her body weight, Marinette slammed the door shut behind her, just in time to feel something heavy crash into the other side, making the hinges groan.

The sound of the locks sliding home was like a sigh of relief, and Tikki phased out of the door to join her.

Marinette took off running again, her lungs burning, but her body insistent to survive.

The sound of Chat slamming against the door got further away as her own breaths got louder and louder.

All the buildings in the neighborhood looked the same: old and decrepit, some of them being renovated, some left to rot. She ducked down one side street and then another, trying anything to throw him off. She didn't even have the space of mind to realize that she had no clue where she was or where she was going.

"We should transform now," Tikki urged.

You're right, Marinette wanted to agree, but the only sound that left her was ragged wheezing.

Spots on.

Spots on!

"Sp-spo—!"

Chat's scream interrupted her call for transformation. She snapped her head around only to see him plunging at her from a nearby roof, all fangs bared and manic eyes on fire.

It was as if someone had ripped open his face and it was all teeth inside.

This was it. It was all over.

Her eyes slammed shut, and she curled in on herself. His feral scream searing itself into her mind.

He would kill her, and the last thing she would ever hear was—

"Shelter!"