Castor pulled back, taking his bow, accepting boos from the crowd and a red Solo cup that was offered to him. He pushed through the audience, heading straight for the stairs. As Castor reached him, Evander gripped his arm, and, together, they disappeared into the sweltering kitchen.
Someone grabbed Lore’s wrist, trying to tug her arm up into the air, but Lore was already moving, shouldering her way through the crowd.
What are you even doing? her mind screamed at her. Let them go!
She collided with someone near the stairs, hard enough that he was sent stumbling back against the nearby wall. Lore whirled around, half an apology already escaping her lips, when she saw who it was.
Shit.
His skin was white as bone, his dark eyes almost comically wide as they met hers. Edgy, vaguely hipster buzz cut. Skinny frame and skinnier jeans. Necklace made of braided horse hair.
Miles.
Unbelievable, she thought. How the hell had this night managed to get worse?
“Wait here!” she ordered.
At his stunned nod, Lore ran up into the kitchen, weaving through the irritated cooks and the veil of steam until she found the disabled emergency door and burst onto the dark street.
The air glowed red from the taillights of the SUV speeding away. A single red Solo cup rolled toward her feet, something dark smeared across the side of it.
Ink.
She turned it toward the dim security light above the door, trying to parse the uneven strokes of each letter. Her pulse beat wildly at her temples.
Apodidraskinda.
A child’s game. Hide-and-seek.
A challenge. Come find me.
Lore dropped the cup into a nearby trash can and walked away.
THE HEAT IN HER body had subsided by the time Lore made her way back down into the basement. She didn’t see Miles as she cut through the crowd and went to retrieve her backpack and night’s pay from Frankie. She only half listened to his instructions on where the next week’s matches would be held, counted her bills to make sure he wasn’t stiffing her, and tried to ignore the thrumming in her veins.
He’s looking for something, and I don’t know if it’s you.
A shudder passed through her. She shook her head, clearing Castor’s voice and face from her mind to prepare herself for what was coming.
Miles was waiting for her outside. In the few minutes it had taken Lore to return to the street, he’d managed to make himself breathless—whether from pacing, rehearsing whatever speech he was about to give her, or a combination of both. He stilled as she came through the door, pretending he’d been checking his phone the whole time.
Whatever she’d expected him to say, it wasn’t “Want to get a bite to eat at Martha’s?”
Lore hesitated. What she wanted was to go home, shower, and sleep for the next six days, until this disgusting hunt reached another end and the next seven-year cycle began. But Miles had a steadying effect on her.
“Sure,” she said with forced nonchalance. It still felt like there was lightning beneath her skin. “Sounds good to me.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You’re definitely paying this time.”
“Am I?” she said, letting herself drift back into their comfortable rhythm. “Or am I going to flutter these lashes and get our meal on the house?”
“When, in your entire life,” Miles began, genuinely curious, “has that ever worked for you?”
“Excuse you,” Lore said. “I am adorably persuasive.”
She fluttered them now, but her face ached from the hits she had taken, and the swelling likely didn’t help much, either.
Miles opened his mouth to say something else, but changed his mind.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said, glancing up at the cloudy sky. “Should we go before we get the shower that only one of us needs?”
The air dripped with humidity and was scented with the bagged garbage piled up for collection the next morning. A taxi blazed by, kicking up a wave of gutter water. It had been raining on and off for days, and Lore knew there was more to come.
“I’m wearing a perfume of the finest lo mein and BO,” Lore said. “There’s no accounting for taste with you.”
That, of course, wasn’t true at all. Miles treated his body like a piece of art, letting it speak for him—his moods, his interests, and the people he carried in his heart. His skin was colored by an array of tattoos, from gorgeous florals and vines that wrapped around his torso, to modern art faces he’d designed himself, to mountains, eyes, and bands of shapes only he knew the meaning of. Lore had always loved the simple hangul tattoos on his neck best because of the story behind them. The phrase was something his grandmother used to say to him when he called her and his parents at home in Florida on Sundays: I love you more with every sunrise. When he’d shown them to her, she’d chided him for yet another tattoo, licking her finger and pretending to try to wipe them away with her finger, but she’d glowed with pride the rest of the night.
They walked to the Canal Street subway station to take the A train up to 125th Street. Lore was halfway down the stairs when she heard the approaching train and felt the telltale gust of air whip through the station. She ran, sliding her MetroCard out of her back pocket and through the reader. Miles, never ready, let out a strangled sound and fumbled with his wallet.
“Wait, no—ack—” Miles swiped his card again, getting an error message.
It was half past three o’clock in the morning, but subway service slowed in the off-hours, leaving the car full. She caught the closing door with her forearm just as Miles all but dove through.
He smacked her shoulder as the train lurched forward.
“Martha’s,” she said. “Hungry.”
“Taxi,” he said. “Easy.”
“Money,” she said. “Wasteful.”
The car emptied at Columbus Circle, freeing the seats in front of them. Miles sat down and immediately pulled out his phone. Lore took a deep breath, rubbing a hand against her forehead. With her body still, there was only the chaos of her thoughts.
He’s looking for something, and I don’t know if it’s you.
Lore had been unsettled by seeing the hunters in the city. She’d known to be afraid of Aristos Kadmou—or whoever he was as a god—finding her. She would be even more careful now and leave the city later that day, steering clear of the fighting and of him. Of all of them.
But the overriding feeling in her wasn’t terror. Lore knew she could hide because she had successfully done it these last three years. Instead, there was a restlessness in her body she couldn’t purge, an unwelcome tightness in her chest every time her mind conjured Castor’s face.
Alive, she thought, still feeling strangely dazed at the thought.
Miles made a noise of dismay beside her. Lore glanced over just as he closed one of his dating apps.
“What happened to the guy you went out with on Friday?” Lore asked, welcoming the distraction. “I thought he had potential. Nick?”
“Noah,” Miles said, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, as if for strength. “I went back to his apartment and met all four of his hamsters.”
Lore turned to him. “No.”
“He named them after his favorite First Ladies,” Miles continued, sounding pained. “Jackie had a pillbox hat made out of felt and nail polish. He made me feed them. With tiny strips of lettuce. Lettuce, Lore. Lettuce.”