You had to find all the right places. All the rights nooks and crannies. Anyone could find a nook to lay down in. A bridge to hide under. An overpass to crawl in the cracks of. All the obvious places homeless people went. Those weren't the safe places, though. They were obvious. Either the cops came and cleared you out or the someone far worse would find you in those places. Espie learned that the hard way in her first few months on the streets.

She wasn't a pro by any means. She was barely decent. But she was determined, and sometimes that's all it took. She found the some of the best places to hide. Not all of them, not the ones a pro would find. But good ones, all the same. Her current hideout as a warehouse outside of Barcelona. Warehouses were dangerous and good all at once. The danger was in how isolated they were. It was a pro too, less likely to be found by the cops that way. But the downside was that if anyone else found you, no one was around to know what happened. You were on your own in places like these.

It was far enough outside of the city it was safer than most. Not the best, but close to it. No one had squatted here in months. She could spend a couple of nights here. Get her bearings, find the best place around.

As it was, she enjoyed the silence and the peace. She took out her sketchbook from her pack and she went to work. It was almost full, she'd need another one. She'd leave this one somewhere special, just like all the last. So many books left behind, but you could only carry the necessities. A sketchbook was a necessity, a full one was not.

Espie went back to work on a drawing from earlier. A picture of a homeless man and his dog. A wild looking dog, made wilder by the streets. With the sweetest eyes she could imagine. Esperanza pursed her lips. She could never quite get the eyes right. There was so much depth in the dog's eyes and she wasn't nearly close to good enough to portray that in her art. But practice made perfect, and she worked at it almost tirelessly.

She nearly missed them.

A group of men. Maybe a girl in there? Esperanza packed her things quickly before moving for the door to the large room she hid in. She pressed against the wall, standing by the wide frame and listening. They didn't sound young. Older. Other vagabonds like her? Partiers taking a detour on their way home? She was silent, listening. Waiting. She couldn't chance it. Too many bad encounters told her better than to hope these people might be good. Everyone on the street was a potential. Friends were rare and they were never more than a day.

Esperanza slipped out the door and down the opposite way of the voices. She ran down stairs and bolted for the door.

And ran smack into a man, toppling back as she did.

She looked up at the man as he stared down at her, stunned and with a cigarette hanging from her mouth. "Hey girly-"

She didn't question it. She kicked out at his shin and grabbed her bag and ran. She heard cursing, heard the stumble, yelling, then the chase. Not just him. He had a friend join him and they were after her. She was faster than them and she had a head start, she was sure of that. That was the only reason she had kicked out, for the head start. Once she got that she could get far away-

Unless she ran into a fence.

"¡Mierda!" She cursed to herself. She didn't even throw a glance back, there was no going back. She jumped at the fence, climbing as quickly as she could.

Hands grabbed her legs and pulled her back down.

"Come here, bitch," The one she kicked started. "That shit fucking hurt," he growled. She attempted to kick out as the other man grabbed at her arms. He pulled at her back as she tried to jerk away and her back came loose, flying to the ground with her few possessions thrown on the path.

"Yeah? More where that came from," she snapped, even as one got her arms and the other picked up her thrashing legs. She didn't go still for a second. they'd have her then.

"Come on, let's get her back to the others," the one with her arms started.

Then a dog snarled at them. They all paused, staring at the dog standing over her sketchbook. To the men, they saw a wild dog with sharp teeth ready to bite. To Espie she saw the soft eyes that she could never quite get right...

"Get on, mutt," the man with her legs barked at the dog. That was when the dog launched at him and Espie threw her head back at the man holding her arms to get free entirely. She got away from the man and grabbed her things, barely noticing the page her sketchbook was opened on was open to the drawing of the dog from before. She just grabbed her things and dodged past the men to try to run again. One still fought with the dog while the other was back after her down towards the street, yelling after her.

Okay. She actually did it. She actually left Spain and went to the Philippines and joined some covert group she was only just barely starting to grasp the concept of. It was all a little overwhelming. It had all gone so fast, but she was here all the same. There was no moving back, only forward. Where would she go back to, anyway? Nothing, that's what.

Esperanza stepped out of the car and onto the large Falner estate. So large it had a forest. What had she agreed to again?

It didn't matter. Esperanza made her way forward and pressed into the manor.