Y had made a joke once that Adon could run a crew of Nyx’s line cooks into a war against every customer, and for the first time he regretted not following through on that idea. Having people behind him felt safe. They didn’t hide behind him, they didn’t march behind Matty, they were a cloud, a united mass, bouncing off walls and tripping into each other with muffled laughter, giddy and trading bets. The dogs stalked casually beside Adon, while Matty and the Forest Guard skipped down corridors, all of them swinging arms as if charging at a Quartet family manor was as boring as barricading the rails, or waiting for a quarantine releases, or watching for vax symptoms to appear in six to ten minutes post lancing. 

Adon didn’t know if they would clear his route or abandon him mid-chat—their only real reputation was chaos. But then… so was his. Adon led them toward the Silver compound and reminded himself with each guilty step that he’d told Lu he would try to stop the violence, but that Lu had to actually be safe before he could start. It wasn’t a betrayal, it was just a long-game. It wasn’t because violence was familiar, it was because there was no other way in the Wells.

☆

They snuck into the Silver family district first. It had once been part of Navy by the faded blue stripe running down the walls, the lights along the floor pressure sensitive, brightening in dark blues at the weight of their feet, illuminating the unnerving blacklight paints the Forest Guard had decorated themselves in. They approached the compound carefully as Adon pointed the way Xeri and Y had separately confirmed Sophia’s office to be. He neutralized most of the Silver guards himself because he wanted them to know he’d been serious about the escort. He wasn’t trying to drag them into a Wells war. 

Matty covered him twice, assigning her crew as watch at each choke point to keep their exit clear as they moved forward through the maze. Adon scowled at her obvious sec-off experience as she expertly angled corners, but didn’t ask. If her crew knew, they’d vetted her, and if they didn’t, he wasn’t going to accuse her now. Besides, she moved with trained precision, but her attitude told him she’d probably failed in their authoritarian hierarchy and she’d say her experience came from some VR game experience in Larsony, or whatever that dumb game Mess was always playing with Euri was called. The last sec-offs he’d officially confronted had dragged him to the Pits, or been in the stands during his fights, still wearing their uniforms as they cheered and wagered against Gideon and the Quartet’s abandoned dogs; he had every right to be wary. The unofficial sec-off he knew did everything in her power to keep it a secret and had spent years proving to Adon that she was one of the good guys and was willing to take a bat to the others when they weren’t. 

After Matty landed a kick to the throat of a Silver about to shout, Adon let his worries go. She was here for the job, he didn’t need to care what she did outside of it. He nodded a thank you as they rounded the last corner. One of Matty’s biggest guys knocked the door in with a single impressive front kick and Adon couldn’t help but chuckle at Sophia’s horrified face whirling toward them, folders falling out of her hands. He stepped in, nodding to Matty who eased the splintered door closed, standing guard outside. 

Adon sighed pitifully, looking Sophia over with the same objective contempt she’d used to measure her sponsorship of him in the Pits. 

“You’re supposed to be dead,” she breathed. 

Adon barked a laugh, glancing down at himself as if surprised by his own existence, “I’m not dead? Wow, go tell Clearwater, maybe they’ll worship me.”

She frowned, shock settling into confusion as she fell numbly into her chair, “they said you were dead.”

He leaned close over her desk with a sarcastic smile, “they lied.”

She scrambled up suddenly, but Adon set a heavy hand on her shoulder, pushing her back down into the office chair. She glared up at him, lip quivering quietly at all the retaliation she deserved, “what do you want?”

“I just came to ask a question.” Adon scooted onto the desk, swinging his legs, “did you send anyone to—” Adon sighed, snapping in her face for attention, the way Y did whenever he stopped listening. “Focus, Sophia. Your guards are—”

A man howled from the hallway, followed by Matty’s distinctive cackle. 

Adon winced at the demonstrative crack, gesturing toward the door and laughing at the timing, “they’re busy, so please focus, I’ll only be a minute.”

“I’m a head,” she whispered to him or herself, “a Quartet head. You can’t possibly dare….”

Adon rolled his eyes, tapping his head and leaning playfully backwards, enjoying her squirming, “being the head just means it’s harder for your own body to kill you,” he angled two fingers from his temple to hers with a wink, “the other heads are happy to execute, however. Headshots only, so don’t bother with vests.”  

She stared at him, eyes wide, frozen in fear, one of those expressions Lu would paint for posterity because they were so rare on real people. 

Adon huffed at the ceiling, flicking the side of her head lightly to pull her out of whatever spiral she was falling into, “please focus.”

She blinked back tears, “is it Artemis?”

Adon’s easy smile finally cracked, dropping into an annoyed sneer, “it’s me, you—” he stopped himself from calling her all the names he’d saved, letting the heavy silence invent its own. Her fingers shook over the arms of her chair as Adon pushed her stacks of papers to the floor, laying on his side, watching her with a bored gaze, “did you send Silver agents to an ARC facility?”

“What? No,” Her brow creased in genuine confusion.

Adon frowned curiously, “did you send any free agents to an ARC facility?”

“Why would I cross any Asylum unit? They’re always looking for a reason, I’m not just going to give them one.”

Adon watched her face twitch, deciding she was mostly right, but shrugged and pressed further, twirling pens from the pen cup he’d slid the edge of her desk, picking up a new one each time he failed and sent a pen or stylus flying, “Maybe you want to do what Gideon couldn’t.”

“Who cares about Gideon?”

“The Quartet, Sophia.” Adon sat up suddenly, bored of their insistent ignorance. Arty at least understood the danger of someone like Gideon.

“We have much bigger problems than the Conductor’s little pet.”

“Mm,” Adon hummed, hopping off the desk, “well, if you ever find yourself considering it, don’t.” He pointed the last stylus at her like a knife, tossing it harmlessly at her face and heading back to the door, mission accomplished by omission. If it wasn’t Silvers, it wasn’t the Quartet, so it was Orestes, and Flock family matters could be solved more quietly, internally even. 

He shuffled toward the door, hands in his coat pockets, then paused with a thought, turning on his heel to face her again, his smile returned, “and don’t let Arty either.” 

She stood, sending her chair sliding backwards, emboldened by the distance between them, “or what?” She felt around for the gun in her desk drawer. 

Adon strode back across the room, stomping over the guest chair and onto the desk, squating and slapping her hand away from the drawer, pulling his other hand from his coat, revealing the knuckles with no knife. He dropped his manic smile, revealing the tidal wave of rage he was barely holding back, “or I’ll fucking kill you, Sophia.”

Reminded of how she’d played with him in the Pits, moving him through fights as her pawn, collecting on his unexpected victories for fun, then withholding treatment, seeing how long he’d last while buying out other potential sponsors, standing outside the med-ward staring at the only toy she couldn’t have, now walking freely into her home. She nodded stiffly. 

Adon stood, pocketing his hands and jumping off the desk. He strode toward the door with a bitter “tsk, if anyone deserves to kill you, I bet it’s me.” Everyone in the Pits and Wells knew Adon didn’t make bets, he made promises, he turned one last time to catch her fear with a wink, “I bet it’s me.” 

Something about the guilt in her brow made him angry. Four years she‘d played with him, torturing him in bracket tournaments, letting him keel over in dehydration while pouring a bottle of fresh water onto the ground, watching his eyes roll back in unconsciousness before tossing a coin to the medic, reading his weekly reports and letting breaks heal before renewing her sponsorship so he had to be intentionally cracked and rehealed into fighting shape. Even Y called her sadistic. He might still have Igor if she hadn’t—Adon suddenly realized his other ear didn’t have a name, that he only named the parts that were no longer attached, or let Y name them. Every ounce of him hated her, more than Gideon, more than his mom, more than all of Caldera that towered above him. All he could think of was that Navy Academy greenhouse, where he’d rejected her, where Lu had burned the last of his hope, maybe where everything had started to go wrong. And she could frown at his entrance like it was an injustice, like she was a poor quivering victim. 

He hated her. He’d promised to let go of the violence. But oh, he hated her. 

He gripped a thin fixed stiletto knife he’d pulled from the Pen-Ten crate leftovers after letting the Forest crew pick it clean, then turned sharply and flung it at the wall beside her with a loud crack. The knife was embedded to the handle, right into the massive Silver family portrait taking up the wall behind her, stabbing through Sophia Silver’s artistically exaggerated neck. 

Sophia squealed and cowered, covering her head as Matty opened the door curiously. Adon bowed out of the office, as if she’d opened the door for him and nodded at the rest of the Guard to follow him out. They left Sophia Silver breathlessly staring at the knife embedded in her own throat, collecting their watchmen as they retraced their steps. 

Outside the Silver district walls, all Forest Guard accounted for, Adon relaxed, skipping excitedly among them, no longer having to factor in any part of the Quartet to protect Lu. All he had to do was tuck Troy and Mykos (and anyone else Phaios pointed out as a danger) into a nice flower bed full of sweet dreams, then have a little chat with this psycho stepbrother about what it meant to be crazy for fun and crazy for real. Then maybe sit Gideon down for a history review before cutting his—no, he’d promised Lu less violence. He’d ask Lu-Lu what to do with Gideon, already pouting at the restraints, knowing Lu would tell him to leave it alone while Arty demanded results. He could ruin Gideon in different ways though. He felt Y running into the end of her beat-em-up obsession, she was starting to grow in the same direction he was, wanting a future, demanding smarter plays than X’s rock-em-sock-em hope-for-the-best junk ideas. Adon shook his head, things could be complicated later, he’d run it past Y, then Xeri, heck even Nyx probably had some ideas. 

Adon ducked his head toward Matty, reenacting his knife throw with a nudge, “did you see that?”

She nodded admiringly, imitating his line-up and watching the pantomimed release.

Adon shrugged bashfully, “it was a lucky shot.” He’d brag to Y later about hitting Sophia Silver in the throat and only make X squirm for a few minutes of re-plotting before clarifying that it was a portrait and not the real person. “It was pretty satisfying though.” 

Matty shrugged, “she didn’t have to have to paint her head so big, easy targets get hit first.”

Adon deflated slightly, thinking of Lu and how the Flock leftovers saw an easy target because they remembered a child beaten to a pulp. He continued with the Guard toward Forest until they reached the makeshift skywalk that would send him to Nyx’s. Matty waved him off, flipping her new knives proudly while Adon pulled on a mask, a helmet, and gloves, tucking and covering in all the ways Medo had taught him, then picked his way through the abandoned open tunnel, joined by two dogs as he climbed over debris and edged the half-swept piles of broken glass or plexiglass, eyeing the walls for fiberglass before pulling on the protective glasses anyway. It was harder to see through the scratched and smudged lenses, but it was better than getting glass in the eye and needing to fund a new one. 

Nyx had a cyber-optic implant and she loved it, but she hadn’t been in the Pits with hack doctors playing Medical Examiner. Adon shivered and tightened his velcro straps, pausing to act as a bridge for the two dogs and stopping at a passing rail vendor to order their most dog-friendly dinner and leaving it in the hall before stepping through the airlock doors into the fourth layer toward Nyx’s.

☆