Adon plopped onto his stool beside Xeri, banging the counter obnoxiously at Mess, “service!”

Nyx appeared with a small cup and Adon tossed it back without hesitation, flinching at the heat and gagging briefly, “god, I hate your whiskey.”

“That’s because it’s coffee,” Nyx chuckled, landing a soft patting smack on his cheek as she swiped the cup, “you’re sober.”

“And I regret it every day of my life.” Adon huffed, trying to pout at her, “but today, I’m celebrating.” She was unmoved and Adon slumped over the bar, then straightened excitedly at the fruity cocktail Mess presented him, dowing it happily and hoping to drown every thought and memory of Sophia Silver sitting in box seats over the Pits, laughing at Igor dangling from his head as the rest of him nearly bled out around his defeated opponent. 

“It’s just juice,” Mess confessed to Nyx’s disapproving frown. 

Xeri jumped up before Adon could get mad at Mess, “what are you celebrating?” Her words slurred as she stumbled into him. 

Adon scowled, straightening her, “why are you drowned so deep? What are you celebrating?”

“Everything,” she slid back onto her stool and folded her head over her arms, draining the last drops of her whiskey sideways onto her tongue until Nyx whacked the top of her head with a towel. 

“Someone keeps looking for you,” Mess leaned on the bar, happy Adon had come back in a decent amount of time, worried he would disappear again any second. Euri yelled at him to run the next order and he pushed off the bar, grumbling at Adon to stop torturing Lu. 

Adon pulled out his dead phone, frowning at the cracked screen and remembering Y’s disappearing cracks, sliding it innocently toward Xeri with a pleading expression. She laughed bitterly and swiped it onto the floor. 

“Doni!” Nika skipped over, throwing her arms around his neck, “do you want a race?”

“No,” he tossed her off him, bending for his useless phone. 

Phaios smacked the back of Adon’s head with a roll of papers and Adon snatched them out of his hands before he could do it again. Any retaliation blew out of him though, when he realized they were roughed out blueprints of Gideon’s compound he’d messaged Phaios about just the night before, when his phone had still shown all the missed calls and texts from Lu. He scratched his half ear, looking them over with an appreciating nod. 

Phaios stood over him awkwardly, “why didn’t you just ask Lu-Bird?”

“Don’t call him that.”

“Why didn’t you just ask your loverboy?” Phai amended.

“Definitely don’t call him that.”

Phaios sighed, “why’d you ask me?”

Phaios was looking for some kind of forgiveness Adon didn’t know he needed, so he could only respond matter-of-factly, pointing to the maze of corridors surrounding the training facility and bunkers where the Flock stayed, “didn’t think he’d actually know too much over here.”

Phaios snorted, “oh, maybe. Gideon actually almost killed him there, but I don’t know how much he remembers. Beat his head in with a stick and everything. Have you seen his tattoo?” Phaios snapped his jaw shut at Adon’s glare, tapping the Finder’s clenched fist gently until he let go of the butter knife, “sorry, sorry.”

Adon narrowed his eyes, glancing over to Nika poking Xeri’s cheek with soft giggles, then back at Phaios, still uncertain about the three of them, “why have you seen his tattoo?” 

Phaios laughed at the accusation, “I was his roommate for a few years. Now we train together, at a gym. Lu-Lu’s got a wicked hook. Look, see this line?” Phaios fumbled with his cheek, trying to find the nearly-faded indent, then turning his other side to face Adon, “or maybe it was this side, yeah, here, look. His glove had a loose thread or something, we never really figured out what happened, but something in the fabric caught me and he had that much force already, that it just p’shew, sliced my cheek. All my blood went running, it was horrible. Didn’t even hurt, but there was blood everywhere, you should have seen it.”

Adon unclenched his fist and returned to the blueprints, memorizing forks and exits as Phaios slid the knife further away from him, talking more than he ever had to Adon, obviously tipsy. “These are really good actually, thank you,” Adon smiled.

“He worked on them all night,” Nika announced proudly. 

“What are you going to do?” Phaios bit his cheek, unsure whether he was in the middle between Adon and Lu again. 

“Don’t kill anyone,” Xeri raised her head, pointing a finger at him and catching his nose. 

“Ow,” Adon folded her head gently back into her arms, “I won’t.” He frowned spitefully at the papers with a shrug, “he might just kill himself though. Who knows.”

“Who?” Phaios insisted, annoyed because Adon was always ignoring him back.

Adon shrugged at him with a coy wink, “don’t they report the jumpers still? You can find out for yourself.” He slid his stool loudly over the tile and stood, bopping Phios on the head with the papers and skipping out the door, a herd of dogs rushing to meet him in the alley, barking excitedly as Phaios, Xeri, and Nika all watched Adon through the windows, traipsing toward the ground. 

Mess sighed at the broken phone left on the bartop, turning it over irritably.

“I’ll message him if you don’t,” Euri nudged. 

Mess kicked him away, “you don’t even have his number.”

“You still do,” Euri laughed, waving Mess’ phone that he’d pulled from his apron pocket out of reach, attempting to text a grave-brick emoji to Lu one-handed, because even Euri could tell that Adon was making plans to protect, the kinds of plans he might not intend to survive himself. And even Mess knew that Lu-Lu was probably the only person who could make Adon stop, so he didn’t fight too hard, and let Euri send the warning. 

Neither of them considered that Lu might ignore a line of grave-brick emoji emojis from Mess as a childish attempt at intimidation, but he’d swiped them easily away, along with all the other messages that had told him to wait, just wait. 

☆

Adon used Phaios’ map to break into Gideon’s house during the last qualifying race of the season. The next would be the final cup, so all the Flock went to see their racers and place their bets and find Gideon, who was still imprisoned, new members to pimp out to the Conductor while Adon looked for any potential blackmail that wasn’t Lu. 

All he found out was that Orestes was, in fact, a certified psychopath, Korinthia had run Heranika’s debt into the ground like a dead-rail amusement ride, and the plastics company would run out of liquid materials any day unless the Silvers solved their issues with Victory or the Whites finished their negotiations with Vice. Or if the Conductor reopened the Underside E-Market, but that would practically ruin Chroma’s economic value and start a different kind of fight in the Quartet, so Adon wandered the empty house, looking for anything else, wondering how Lu had spent his time in the cold stone halls.

After a few minutes, he realized he was looking for Lu’s room, remembering that tiny yellow mark on the heat map. Lu had been there a few times, maybe as few as possible. Maybe Gideon gripped his neck and pulled him down by any means necessary, then let him fly away, not yet clipping his wings. People did that, he’d read about it in one of the illegal Grounder books Medo had used as walls in his warehouse hovel. If certain bird feathers were clipped, they couldn’t fly. He’d thought of it like not being able to run if his hair was shaved. It did feel weird the first few times in the Pits, too exposed and cold, but he’d been able to dodge and sprint just fine. But he hadn’t grown up in Lu’s cage, believing himself a bird.

After opening every door, Adon realized there was no room that could belong to Lu, only a guest room devoid of any personality, stinking of Heranika’s oversweet room fresheners that littered the mansion. He wondered if Lu would stop him when he moved against Gideon; he wondered if he would listen. He wouldn’t lie to himself and say the fear in Sophia Silver’s eyes wasn’t soothing to his bitter heart. She’d come to look at him starving in that Pit cage whenever she wanted, and now she knew he could do the same. It wasn’t fair yet, not until he broke her legs and made her limp around and then paid to heal them so they hurt whenever the rains came, but even that wouldn’t be fair, there was no way to make it fair and be loved by Lu, so he’d just settle for the threat and hope she understood that if she ever challenged the fairness of his world again, she would be removed as the error. And if she targeted Lu for any reason, he would have no reason not to be fair back. 

Adon didn’t know exactly what kind of person Lu would throw away, and he didn’t want to get too attached to the idea of his warmth, he just wanted to sit beside it as long as he could, and when all those yellow and orange marks on his print-o med-report finally caught up to him, he wanted to know that Lu was safe. That would be enough. Then he could rest. 

Adon sighed and opened the last of the doors off the training room, where Gideon’s Flock slept in neat beds with schedules posted on the door of each room, and smiled at the beginnings of an idea. 

Adon left the house the way he’d entered: through the front door, flicking off the camera and working his way to Nika’s track in time to watch Phaios win another calculated close race. He waved at Tutor in the garage, Phaios’ genius mechanic who spoke with such a heavy Vice accent that no one understood him. Tutor did not wave back, but nodded his head awkwardly and turned his attention to the bike Phaios was handing off, already tinkering. 

Adon smirked cruelly at a few angry runner-up riders throwing helmets and running from cameras, carefully tracking the red and gold race suit of the barely-qualifying Troy, throwing his gloves with a loud tantrum as his impressive crew of well-known and well-paid mechs and modders lined up with a sigh, tired of second place. Adon tried to hide his smile, but it was too easy, the plan already fully formed in his head, pity for future Troy already giggling uncontrollably through him. He would never be allowed on the track again if it worked, but he had no intention of returning. Lu was waiting, with a warm home and a wardrobe of shirts Adon had to laugh at and never wear. He’d stocked cupboards and practiced cooking, and Adon wanted to know what Lu would make him, that egg dish that never had a name? Would it taste nostalgic, or familiar, or spicy? Did Lu like his food spicy? 

Adon glanced around the crowd preparing for the next trial race and said his preemptive goodbye. He didn’t need to come back. He was sick of returning, of running, of being cold, and Lu-Lu had waited enough. 

Adon wove through the stands, making small talk with bookies who still remembered him, planting seeds between their salesman theatrics. I heard there’s an obvious pot winner without Phaios next week, he smiled innocently, over and over again as he dragged himself through the crowds of vendors and bet-tents outside the track, a recognizable face with no stake in the game. Yeah, Phaios is gonna have a stand in, I don’t know who though. He smiled to himself, it’s an easy line-up according to Nika—me? Nah, I only paced Phaios, I shouldn’t compete for him. I just heard he had another gig, what does he need another finals cup for? He can run in the next league just fine, right? Yeah, we all know it’s true. Always, he waited for that curious laugh, over-excited about their new information, never made any promises or clear statements, always walking himself back, no, it might not be true, I don’t really know. I haven’t been around the track much, but they all knew he ran with Nika and Phaios, they’d all seen him at Nyx’s bar, Xeri’s arm around his shoulder. He never mentioned Troy by name either. 

In the after-race interview broadcast, however, Troy himself swore he’d be winning the finals bag, no matter what it took, and Adon skipped all the way down to the garage, clapping Phais’ shoulder, but addressing Nika, “he’s not racing next week.”

Nika waved him off, “Troy’s all talk Doni, he’ll be fine.”

“Yeah,” Phaios frowned, nodding for Adon to take the sleeve of his race suit so he could pull his sweaty arm out of the fireproof padding before he died of exhaustion and dehydration at the same time, “I only kept it that tight because Nika asked me to, I could smoke him.”

“Yeah, well, everyone knows it. You’re too good and it’s boring,” Adon smiled humorlessly at him, clapping his shoulder, “they’ll call you a cheat if you try to win the finals of this league, again. Time to move up.” The next league was the obstacles, the kind Y had raced in, and they all knew it was secretly Phai’s goal. Even Nika was smiling tightly, news she hadn’t broken yet.

 “You’ve got a few more good years in you,” Adon smiled, patting Phai’s shoulder, “you’ll survive. Do the qualifier next week,” Adon couldn’t remember the league names, he’d always just thought of them as Y’s and under-Y, but even Y had said Phaios could compete in the top one. Adon wasn’t going to tell Phaios that himself, he still didn’t know what to think of him, but he needed him out of the finals, “besides.” He smiled innocently at Nika, “I’m going to sub in for his team.”

“Are you crazy?” Phaios shoved Adon, thinking only of Lu. 

“Really!” Nika’s eyes lit up at the thought of the crowd. 

“Oh, come on,” Phaios elbowed her shoulder gently, “Nik, you’d start a riot.”

“Not me-me.” Adon clarified, “I’ll make an alias. I need Troy to win.”

Nika dropped her arms, glaring at him, “I’ll have you tarred and skinned by my own tires before you so much as hover around the idea of rigging a match in my pit, Adonis Caldera.”

Adon snorted at his name and the warry crew tiptoeing around them, holding up a solemn hand, “not rigged, I swear.”

“Then what trick?”

“Just market me as Adon Calderis or something,” he shrugged at the newest iteration of Caldera’s auto-generated names for baby IDs left blank, “no Finder or whatever. That’s not cheating. I’ve never qualified for a league race, I’m just a pacer getting in for a chance at a bag because my boss is moving up.” He bowed his head gallantly toward Phaios who only glared.

Nika smacked the top of his head with Phaios’ thick gloves and held his gaze for a long minute before sighing and pointing across the track covered in crews reworking obstacles for next week’s top league race while the last of the time trials ran and the crowd filed out, “fine, register with Jonah.”

Adon skipped away before Phaios could talk her out of it, though he heard him trying. He smacked Tutor’s shoulder as he passed, “acceleration and agility for me,” he winked excitedly. 

Tutor sighed, turning to Nika for approval. She nodded and he sighed again, lumbering toward the storage garage to pick out a frame and build a new bike.