252 Dunahan Street North.

I stalk the streets with the determination of a soldier-- no, soldiers feel fear. I'm past that. I stalk the streets like a lion on the prowl, or maybe with the endless determination of a drone, which can't do anything but draw closer to its objective. A choice never had to be made. The law in its metal body, its coding, won't allow for anything else.

This part of the city is somewhere between suburbia and pure urban, apartment buildings bordering on stores bordering on large industrial complexes. It's not somewhere we come often, but the only costume shop in town is a few blocks away, so I have faint memories of being here for Halloween, which is at least somewhat fitting. I squint at an abandoned storefront, then back at Evan's chickenscratch handwriting, obscured further by the ugly artifacts of the blurry JPEG my brother sent me. I know it's a lot to ask for Will to do anything right, but I feel it's not unreasonable to ask him to take one picture. Regardless, I'm pretty sure the place with the graffitied interior and dusty, shattered windows, would be the place.

In my time as a "superhero", I've done many, many questionable things, and

sneaking into a den of stoners is probably the third worst. I shed the vestigial concern of the Adam Rosenbloom who entered this school year. I'm not him anymore- I'm the thing born of him commingled with Diosite, which crawled into his skin, just about kissed two people (of opposite genders), broke his heart, ate up his will to live, and now I'm going to smash whatever dignity he had into the ground.

I'll say one thing for the last few months: this is nothing now. Pushing open the door to the building and walking towards the distant sounds of people sheltering in a busted former restaurant kitchen is like getting a shot at the doctor's office. You're not eagerly anticipating it, but it's not something worth dreading.

Light rises in my heart as it fades from my surroundings, a bright burning thrill. My fingers click against a half-used stick of pineapple chapstick and the Diosite, which jostles in my bag, unhappy to be abused in such a matter. I duck around strangers, all of whom watch me with this peculiar amusement. "What're you doing here, pretty boy?" calls someone from the corner, with red eyes. "Don't you have a tutor to go to?"
Ill-natured laughter follows.

"Shit, I think that's one of the Rosenbloom twins--"

Yeah, no. I pass them towards the back. The building is a labyrinth, especially for what should be such a conceptually simple set-up, and I'm reaching the uglies, boilers, pipes, and all. It still smells like weed in the furthest corners of the place, this sweet combination of mint and sewage that is marginally less disgusting than the burned flesh scent I've had stashed up my nostrils for three weeks. Overhead, light fixtures hang out of their sockets like protruding eyeballs. I can hear gasping from the bathrooms. I hate being here on every level, but the dull, rusting metal, where it offers a reflection, doesn't show disgust but utter apathy. I swing my flashlight around in the dark and at last fall upon a lifeless shape hunched up against the wall, smoke twisting from something chapstick-sized in his hand. He fits perfectly between the massive devices, the machines offering him up a den.

My phone buzzes. It's Jack. I'm amazed I get cell service all the way back here.

There's a photo attached, with the helpful caption, "Dude is that you".

Two eyes pierce mine in the darkness, questioning. I shut off my phone and sit down. The stranger beside me looks through me, as if he can't see me there at all. His retinas are red, but his movements are lucid and restrained as he shuffles aside to give me a little room. He smells like smoke with something sweet twisted in. A mop of oilslick-black hair turns like an angry sea on his head, begging for my hand. A half-visible ring of flame burns in the darkness and he inhales deeply. It's a practiced movement. When he moves it away, raising himself up, my heart begins pulsing again. He's threatened to kill me in public before. He has no witnesses here.

Evan's voice comes out as a smoky whisper. "Are you going to say anything?"

It's him. My head and heart are buzzing. "I was invited," I tell him. "I was surprised I got through to you at all."

He's silent, dropping his eyes. The flicker of light from my phone illuminates his face just enough for me to see a half-frown, twitching with discomfort. "I did give Will that letter," he whispers. "Stupid. Fucking stupid."

It's taking a lot of self-restraint not to knock the joint out of his hands and put my hands around him, to grab him so tightly he wouldn't be able to think or feel anything. Fear and Anthem's vigilance hold me back. I'm not sure which of those things I hate more right now. "Why are you doing this to yourself?"

"It's like music. I have this song in my head, and if I play my own song over it loud enough, I can almost forget what's playing."

What would Megan say, I think to myself. What would Megan do. "What song is it?"

"I dunno, something by Evanescence," Evan said, flipping the blunt around in his fingers.

"That's terrible," I say. "I knew shit was bad, but Evanescence?"

Evan's voice is a hoarse, joking wheeze. "Fuck off." For a second, in the darkness, the scent of weed and the distant roar of voices clear to a moment, suspended in the nothingness where only the two of us are, together. I laugh too, under my breath. "You should have tried one of these. I bet you'd look ridiculous with one in your mouth."

"How do you feel about secondhand smoke?" I ask, leaning in.

Is he going to kiss me back? He tilts back like he might be going to, and then, just as I've properly moved into position to kiss him, Evan's fingers slam me right in the face. I get a little bit of his fingernail right under my brow ridge, which is painful, but not quite as much as the rusted pole the back of my head just hit. His breath seizes up, and when I grab the hand away, I see his whole face convulsing. He brings his other hand to it, to try to keep the sight of it away from me. Choked up, he says, "I'm sorry." He repeats it a few times under his breath. "Sorry, sorry, I can't look... I can't even look..."

I bring my fingers up to the brow ridge. Doesn't look like it's bleeding. "What did they do to you?"

"Noise," Evan says, his voice rising, accelerating, as Onyx's shadow casts against the wall. "All the time. All the time! I thought, I mean, at first, you think, 'Yeah. I can get through this.' But they always get you. They always do. It just keeps going up and up and all I could think was I will do anything if you stop I promise I'll do whatever you want and I meant it. I meant it even as I tore through her fucking ribcage, Adam. I still mean it."

Please don't say that, I want to beg him, but my mouth is dry. I can't hit him. I can't kiss him. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. If I had died, what would Megan be doing right now? Would Megan even still be alive? What would she do? What am I supposed to do for him?

He keeps going. "It's never over. I hear it all day. When I'm asleep, when I'm awake... I don't dream anymore, Adam. There's nothing but noise and light and pain."

I need to run.

He chokes a little in the back of his throat. "Why did you have to come back?"

"You bought the invitation!"

"I was trying to-" I can almost see his teeth into sharpened, awful fangs, the dark hair like the mess of scales and horns that crown the head of beasts, and then, slowly, the dragon pulls back from his face, and all that remains is a feeble shell of a human. "I wanted to say goodbye."

"I'll see you tomorrow," I say, which sounds like a promise, even though I am terrified of seeing him tomorrow. He will try to kill me tomorrow.

"You have to get rid of me or you're never going to get down there," he says.

I close my eyes. I think he knew I wouldn't be able to handle this. "You couldn't make me."

"Right. Fuck Adam. I'm negotiating with Chief, then. They're having a meeting in two days. The higher-ups. Probably expecting you. You don't have enough firepower to get through, but that's when they'll have the least grunts around. They'll be using me as a guard dog all night."

"Then we'll get around you. Incapacitate you early."

He places his hands around his ears, the motion almost inhuman, and gulps something down. He's hyperventilating. "You don't get it. You don't get it." Each word is slurred, winding in and out of his control like the smoke that moves past him into the dim air, dispersing into nothing.

"Evan," I beg.

His eyes are red and raw, although I can't tell if it's from crying or the drug. He whispers, "I wish it had been her. I wish she'd been thrown in instead of me, because then she would have killed me instead and all of this would be over. That's when I know I've really betrayed her."

I can't say anything. My throat is dead, I'm choking on the smoke in the air and every word he says. I manage to reach out for him, and he smacks me away.

His grimace tilts upwards. "I'm coming down," he says. "Come on, Adam. Run. I've seen you do it before. You run right now, far as you can, get your pretty little sword, and get ready to run it right through my chest. You on me. One on one." His hands do not shake as he pulls himself up. He puts out the blunt with the heel of his shoe. Whatever has a grip on him pulls the strings again, rectifying his back, drawing him into Serena's stance, into my father's, moving past human into pure, mechanical virus.

"Evan." I'm back against the wall, fight-or-flight taking over, the situation caving in on me like the terrible infrastructure of the building.

He stands, assuming a posture like the Delegation member shell of a person I've fought lately, over and over, but there's a flicker of him in the eyes, dangerous and defiant- that's him, that's Evan. It's Evan who whispers: "Stop looking back, Adam. You won't find anything. We're both dead."