I manage to use my ASP to take down three on the way to the woods. My breathing hitches as I run toward them. I can’t afford to be scared but I can’t trust myself either, not with this jacked up arm. I struggle to stay calm, to be numb and smart as I work through them. Each one drops with a fractured skull and a hit to the temple just for good measure. Injured or no, it never hurts to be thorough. Only this does, it hurts. Physical activity of any kind, especially running or bashing in skulls, makes my arm throb to a painful rhythm.

When I reach the woods and call out for Crenshaw, I’m shocked to see him emerge entirely from the shadows. He walks right up to me, staff ever in hand, and wraps his arms tightly around me without a word.

“Cren,” I say awkwardly, my mouth pressed into the hood of his robe, “do you know you’re hugging me?”

He pulls back, still holding onto my shoulders. His face is very nearly beaming. “Athena, I’d thought you lost for the ages.”

I smile despite my discomfort at his proximity. “No, I’m still here.”

“Thank the stars for small favors,” he says, gesturing to the blue, afternoon sky. “Come, sit with me awhile and tell me of your adventures to the great beyond.”

He leads me through the bushes toward his hut, past the traps and snares meant to deter and murder anyone dumb enough to trespass here.

“There’s not much to tell, really.”

“They took you,” he says frankly, his face firm. Annoyed.

“Yes.”

“The rogues,” he grumbles as we enter his hut. He sits me down across from him at his small table. “They knew not with whom they were dealing. Athena! Goddess of War and Vengeance.”

“Amen to that.”

“How did you escape?”

I hesitate, unsure how I want to handle this. I didn’t want to admit to Ryan what I’d done and I can’t imagine telling the story to Crenshaw. He might be proud, which I don’t know if I’ll particularly like, or he could be angry with me. Again, not something I’d like.

“I heeded wise words,” I tell him meaningfully. “I kept my wits sharp and luck favored the prepared.”

“Ha!” Crenshaw exclaims excitedly, clapping his hands together once. “Wonderful. Well done, my dear. I knew you were not a lost cause.”

“Thank you,” I say, not really sure it’s a compliment. Maybe it’s just an observation. Stupid Trent.

“Your arm,” Crenshaw says suddenly, his demeanor becoming sedated. “Have you been caring for it? Do you need anything for the pain or infection?”

“No, thank you. I’ve been taking medicines for it.”

He scowls at me. “From whom? Not one of those Charlatan’s in the markets, I hope.”

“No, Cren. From you.”

Crenshaw stares at me for a lone moment before nodding sagely. “The boy.”

“Yes,” I reply, feeling nervous. I’m breaking a rule here by mentioning a Lost Boy in his presence. We never speak specifics and I’ve just gotten very, very specific.

“He’s a good one, that lad. Stay close to him.”

“Really?” I ask, shocked. “I thought I was supposed to avoid the company of men.”

Crenshaw nods again, watching me. “There are few good men left in this world of wraiths, devils and fools, my child. Should you find one, you’d be an idiot to walk away. And you, Athena,” he says, heavily, “are no idiot.”

“I don’t know about that. I’ve been pretty stupid lately.”

He waves my protest away dismissively. “Youth!” he cries, as though that one word explains away every complication in my entire world.

And who knows? Maybe it does.

***

Two nights later I’m scared to death by a pounding on my door. It’s not frantic, but it’s loud and insistent. I wrap my blanket around me, hiding the shorts and threadbare t-shirt I’m sleeping in, and run for the door.

“Who is it?” I whisper into the crack, feeling ridiculous. I’m not used to visitors. All I know is that if their answer is ‘Ughhhhh’, they are not coming in.

“Joss, it’s us,” Ryan replies weakly.

I quickly lift the board off the door and fling it open. There they stand, Trent and Ryan, leaning against each other. They’re both covered in blood. Some of it is way too dark to be theirs. To be human.

“What the hell happened to you two?”

“Can we come in and tell you that?” Ryan asks impatiently. “My leg is killing me.”

I step aside to let them pass, but I eye Trent hard as I do. “Why does his leg hurt?”

“You ask that like you think I had something to do with it.”

“Did you?”

Trent chuckles quietly. I get no other answer.

I slam the door, dropping the board over it again. Trent drops Ryan down carefully in the middle of the room. He collapses back, breathing hard with his arm thrown over his eyes. I watch as he flexes his right leg back and forth, a grimace etched around his mouth.

“What happened?” I ask again, my tone softening. I go to step closer, to kneel down to help him, but Trent comes straight at me. I instinctively back up against the door, my eyes darting toward my weapons wall as his shadow moves through the dark loft.

“Easy,” he says calmly. “I was just leaving.”

“What about Ryan?”

“You’ll play nurse to him better than I will. The gang can’t know he’s fighting freelance. I’ve gotta get back and tell everyone he’s spending the night with a pro named Freedom.”

I frown, confused and freaked out. “Is that where he was? With a whore?”

Ryan lifts his head off the ground to glare at me. “You think a girl did this to me?”

“Why not?” I ask with a shrug. “I could.”

He laughs, dropping his head hard against the wood floor. “Touché.”

“You’re not really a girl, though,” Trent tells me.

Ryan laughs again.

“Wow, Trent, thanks for that,” I say sarcastically.

“I mean, you look like one right now, for sure,” he says, his eyes falling down my body exposed by the drooping blanket. I snatch it up closer around myself, glaring at him as he grins. “But your average girl couldn’t survive like you have.”

“Is that a compliment?”

He shakes his head, stepping closer and forcing me away from the door. “Nope. Not everything is a compliment or an insult, Joss. Sometimes things just are what they are.” He steps outside into the hall. “Take care of our boy. I’ll see you two in the morning.”

“That guy is…” I begin, dropping the board across the door yet again. I don’t know what else to say. He’s not annoying, but he’s not fun either.

“He’s Trent,” Ryan mumbles, still flexing his leg.

“Exactly.”

And suddenly Trent’s parting philosophy lesson makes a world of sense. I decide he’s annoying after all.

“So what happened?” I ask Ryan, plopping down on the floor beside him.

He lowers his arm, giving me a good look at his face in the moonlight. It’s covered in small cuts and tiny abrasions. He’s bleeding a little everywhere. Walking through the streets like this, casting out that living, bleeding scent, was insanely dangerous. It makes me grateful for the dark undead blood splattered over his shirt and coat. At least he had some camouflage.

“I fought in the Underground tonight.”

“You’ve done it before, haven’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“How often?”

He looks away, staring straight up at the ceiling. He looks exhausted, beaten. I have a hard time believing that this is what winning looks like, but he’s still alive so it must be.

“Not as often as my brother. He did it a lot. He was kind of a legend.”

“Is that how people know you there?”

“Partly. I haven’t fought since just before he died. He didn’t want me to. He fought for our gang as a way of making money. To earn favors from other gangs. It’s dangerous though.”

“Yeah, I imagine. You’re fighting Risen for fun. What if you’d been bitten?” I look over his body, finding more black tar blood as I search. “What if some of this has gotten inside you?”

“That’s not why it’s dangerous.”

“Ryan, you could die. It’s a big, big part of it.”