Mess collected stories of Adon and told Aphy nothing, already twice betrayed by her. He wandered popular Grounder spots, searching for a man with hair like his, worried he wouldn’t be able to pick him out with only the one view through a window to go off. He mentioned the furry orange coat to the creeps who hovered around her at the food court carousel, and slowly learned about the Finder—that brutal Grounder who had escaped the Pits with someone they reverently called Y. Mess drank in the intimidation of the men who wouldn’t leave Aphy alone on a late shift when he eventually  revealed that their revered Finder was his brother. And they all knew Aphy was his sister. 

They laughed uncertainly, waving fingers in his face and telling him to find a better joke, and Mess had wanted so badly to punch them. But they were rail workers, grown men plied weak by alcohol, but still twice his width, biceps as big as his face. Mess insisted that the Finder was their brother and the stalkers laughed harder, still leering at Aphy behind the counter. Mess met her everyday to walk her home, but what good would it really do? They’d started calling after her despite Mess’ presence. He was a non-threat.

Frustrated and angry, Mess stood fast enough to topple his chair, stomping from the slowly rotating carousel of railcars while the men cackled and returned their dangerous attention to his sister. 

The tired sigh was the only thing Mess recognized as he stormed through the alley, obliviously passing Adon a second time.

“Phaios said you came to the track,” Adon leaned against the brick wall of the narrow alley, newly sober and endlessly bored. Three massive dogs sat quietly at his feet, not a leash in sight as he straightened, “what do you want?”

Mess smiled at the orange coat, the boots, the pink hair grown out, “you really are the Finder?” He didn’t need to ask if it was Adon.

Adon sighed, “what does that have to do with anything? Why are you going below the Mid-gate?”

“Looking for you,” Mess chuckled at the surprise on Adon’s face, any intimidation he might have felt corralled by familiarity as Adon surveyed him. He still smelled like frosting and pine.

“Looking for me, why?” Adon’s eyes narrowed.

Mess barked a second humorless laugh at the obvious, mirroring Adon’s nonchalant pose against the opposite wall, “because you’re my brother and I’ve been looking for you for six years.”

“Don’t.” Adon sneered, then rolled his eyes and sighed. He couldn’t scare Mess even if he wanted to.

Mess leaned forward, measuring this Adon against his memory and finding them surprisingly similar. One of the dogs jumped up suddenly, barking at Mess who startled back. Adon barely pivoted a foot and the dog returned to its patient seat behind his leg, laying down with a huff. 

In the ringing quiet, Mess asked the only thing he wanted to know, “did you look for me?”

Adon snorted dryly, gesturing at him, “I found you.”

“Oh… yeah,” Mess frowned, remembering the drunk, barefoot man at his door over a year ago. 

“I found you right where I left you,” Adon’s lips twitched in the shadow of a smile as he turned away. He wanted Mess to know he’d never been abandoned, not in the way their mother and fathers had left them, but he didn’t deserve sympathy or understanding, so he didn’t elaborate. He grimaced, pointing a crooked finger at his little brother, “and I can check your grades any time, so….”

If Messenger Caldera had any bigger dreams for his life, he might have demanded his sweet, warm, genius brother tutor him for his upcoming CAPT, but he hated studying. He only wanted to know his new sour, cold, and scary brother. 

He caught Adon’s arm, pointing a thumb at the carousel cars rounding the rail at the end of the alley, “those guys won’t leave Aphy alone. They come in every night, and they followed us yesterday. And… and they scare me.” Mess wasn’t sure how mentioning Aphrodite would go. He’d put enough pieces together on his own: that they lived in a Mid unit meant for Adon’s scholarship, that Aphy’s job couldn’t pay that rent alone, that their Mids school fees, groceries, and other essentials didn’t always add up, that someone was helping. But he’d genuinely thought it was their deadbeat mom finding a conscience, or even Heather, or Aphy’s string of wealthy boyfriends. Until Adon said they were where he left them, Mess had never even considered that he’d never been lost or missing. He looked Adon over again, each dim scar promising a heartbreaking tale of survival and sacrifice Mess wasn’t really ready to hear. He’d drawn the line between his memory of his brother and the Ground’s mythical Finder, he understood it logically, but just imagining the weight of the truth was already too heavy. He didn’t need the hows or whys, he just wanted the who. He wanted to know who Adon was now, carefully, cautiously, but also fully and without abandon. He wanted to be better than Aphy.

Adon chewed his lip, looking down the alley as the food court cars rattled slowly around. Mess had always been honest, too intuitive, almost haunting as a kid. He could say things like I’m scared, and it was enough of a stool for Adon to stand on to reach his burning rage. “They scared you?” He confirmed, pointing at the two men passing in Aphy’s car, now seated at the window, watching her flirt with her coworker with tight fists around tall glasses.

Mess nodded with a pout, then watched Adon stomp forward and knock on the passing window with a flash of orange, gesturing to the men to come out. They stood easily and lumbered through the rocking cart, and Mess shrank, unsure whose death warrant he’d proposed as Adon smiled enough to crinkle his eyes. The line connecting his brother to the Finder was suddenly too obvious and Mess shivered closer to the lazy dogs. 

Adon watched the men sway toward him, their steps heavy and measured. They were huge, but his smirk sharpened because they were only large. They did not know how to fight and they would not fight together. Their shoulders bumped, unsynced, and they looked at Adon annoyed, the kind of men who valued their personal honor systems to the point of obsession, but never followed them when pressed. They’d shout bold claims confidently, if someone hits me, I hit back, but they’d never tested that hypothesis. They were men held together by ignorance and ideology, without that fermenting glue of experience. 

Adon shrugged out of his coat, “do you know who I am?”

The first man chuckled, “little Messenger says you’re that Finder character all the Grounders suck off.”

Mess lunged forward but Adon caught him by the hood, hanging his coat over Mes’ face and pushing him gently toward the dogs who shifted lazily around him, on guard and protective of their feeder, but disinterested until he called for help.

Adon inhaled slowly, then leapt up with a brass-knuckled uppercut, sending the first man’s crack-jawed skull into the brick wall and dropping him instantly. The bigger man, who stood with a fighter’s stance and an athlete’s ego, blinked. 

He hesitated, holding up both hands in shocked surrender, backing away, “Aphrodite’s really your sister?”

Adon cocked a brow without answering because it shouldn’t matter. He inhaled his next move, gripping his fists, but the man held his hands higher.

“Okay, okay, I’ll tell the others,” he reached to drag his friend away, wincing under his half-conscious weight, “s-s-sorry.”

Adon smiled at their whimpering, surprised they were smart enough to know what a retreat was for. When they’d limped out of the alley, Adon wiped his face back to neutral and turned to find his own cruel smile in Mess’ eager eyes. Adon sighed, “don’t get any ideas.”

“You’re so cool,” Mess squealed, a million questions flitting over his face. 

“It’s not cool,” Adon pouted at his bruised knuckles. Y would laugh and tell him he was lucky not to break a finger. “It’s just luck. And—” he almost said practice. “Go finish your homework.”

Mess scowled, blocking Adon’s path. 

Adon rolled his eyes and turned to go the other way, snatching his coat off Mess’ shoulders.

Mess caught him by the sleeve, pulling him back and tucking Adon’s phone back in the coat pocket where he’d found it, poking a demanding finger at his brother’s nose, “don’t ignore me.”

Adon yanked his coat on, “you put your number in?” He was impressed that Mess remembered how to use the old phones, digging for the brick in his pocket full of knives, calling the licking dogs off Mess a second time. 

Mess nodded, holding up his call screen reading Doni. 

Adon glanced from his phone to Mess and back, “but how’d you unlock it?”

Mess guffawed loudly, slapping an apologetic hand over his mouth in the echoing alley, “it wasn’t hard, Doni.” He whispered with a friendly punch at Adon’s shoulder, skipping back toward Aphy’s passing car, “I still eat cake on your birthday!”

Adon watched him go, all his feelings conflicting except for the twinging annoyance that Mess was taller than him and still growing and the sad realization that the Messenger Caldera he’d had registered for emergency contact was not his brother, even though he’d checked the ID code and the Platform account three times. Upon further investigation, it turned out that one of the now five contacts in his comms list was linked to an Asylum ID belonging to Mess’ deceased grandfather. Adon deleted it; back to four. 

☆