Adon drank until Nyx refused to serve him another. Then he wandered to Nika’s track, but Phaios and Xeri were practicing a new run, drifting a tricky curve over and over, so Adon staggered away. Seeing Y so broken in the Med-pod had reminded him how fragile they were, but hearing her warm threats still protecting X revealed how frozen he’d become. He had no people. He had four registered ID codes listed as emergency alerts, but he knew none of those four had his, mostly because his ID code was killed by the Quartet when he’d paid out his debt and he was wandering the Ground with an illegal anonymous code that half a dozen others used to jailbreak devices and bypass scanners. Xeri had helped him customize a code for his Asylum credit account so he had three layers of passwords. It still said Adonis Caldera, but there were a million of those. His ID code with the outstanding CAPT scores and Jane recommendations, with his mother’s debt and Lu’s betrayal, that code had died in the Pits, retired, frozen, completely unusable. 

He was pretty sure it was now registered as deceased, which felt appropriate when he looked at the grave-brick box by his bed, but quickly turned to haunting at the brief jealousy he felt toward the chain owners who’d died in the Pits. It might have been nice to have such a clean-cut ending, without the pieces of himself buried and scattered and broken and tingling. To fit snugly in a box marked healthy or else the other box marked dead, but no, he’d had to go making challenges and promises to survive. Sometimes, when multiple old injuries flared up at once, he envied the jumpers who refused to linger in that long line between healthy and dead, unwilling to deteriorate further. Or heal. 

Adon swayed through the dark halls, trying to escape his self-pity, but even his own anger was out of reach. There was no larger emotion to pull him out of the numbness—no rage or injustice to warm him against the frost-filled tunnels as he crunched heavy boots over garbage-infested corridors. There was only survival. Again. Survival so Aphy and Mess could live better, he reminded himself. 

A small group of Arcade kids surrounded him and Adon smiled at their punches. They tried so hard to be tough, despite the warning-bright orange of a venomous creature he had wrapped himself in. He let them kick and hit and snarl, doubled over in laughter every buried memory of the Pits rang like clear bells, hungry to relive easy victories, to take control of the cold and let it consume him because then at least the cold wouldn't burn. 

He let them take his boots, they were too big anyway. Besides, his warehouse had dozens of pairs still wrapped in plastic, stored beside the jumpsuit uniforms left behind in the ancient stockroom. But when they tried to take his coat, he growled a sobering warning. They didn’t let go, and within half a minute, Adon was tripping over the pile of groaning bodies, snatching his flask from a shaking hand, but leaving his boots. 

He didn’t notice the glares on the railcar as he drank what was left and wiped his mouth, tired of drowning, exhausted, too much city pressing down above him. Later, he would realize he was looking for a reason to hold on, a reminder that wasn’t Aphy’s glare, or their mother’s debt, or Lu’s back disappearing down the rails. Y had other people, Aphy and Mess had each other, and Lu-Lu had chosen the Flock, so whether they were there for him or not, Adon forced himself not to care. He swayed dangerously along the edges of rail platforms, cutting around the Mid-gate barriers with that adrenaline rush of nearly falling, and before he knew it, he was knocking on their door. 

A fifteen-year-old Messenger answered absently, pulling the door open without taking his eyes off the game flashing over the phone in his hand, “sorry Chan, you’re early, and I promised I’d—” He gestured to the game in his hand, stepping out of the doorway and nodding for his guest to enter, all focus still on the screen.

Adon did not follow him in, leaning against the frame with a dazed smile. Mess was already taller than him. 

“No. No, no, no, no—yes!” Mess pumped a fist, turning victoriously to the door and jumping dramatically, surprised to see a barefoot Grounder staring at him from where Chandris was supposed to be. Mess straightened his shirt and swallowed his confusion, “oh, sorry… um… hello, sir…?”

Adon snorted. He laughed so he wouldn’t cry at Mess’ lack of recognition, and Mess cringed away from the liquor rolling off his breath, which only made Adon laugh harder. “Sorry, sorry,” he conceded, hands raised innocently, still staring at Mess, eyes bright, “are you staying in school?” He remembered Mess’ barely-passing grades and leaned conspiratorially toward him to remind him to study, “or are you—”

“HEY!” Aphy careened down the hall, stomping past glaring neighbors and shoving Adon, hard, out of the doorway. 

Adon stumbled down the balcony hall, toppling onto his butt with a groan at the metal grate digging into his sobering palms. 

“I told you to stay away!” Aphy shrieked, shoving a curious Mess inside and slamming the door behind them both.

Adon laughed, leaning over the low concrete wall, wiping a tear and telling himself it was because Mess was taller than him now. He leaned forward until his weight shifted, hovering over the drop for just a second before kicking himself back upright and pushing off the wall. He limped back to the Ground, untempted, his tallies no longer mocking, returned to their victorious intent. He had his reason to survive, tucked in the new bounce of each step. Mess was taller, but he still had baby cheeks, and his easy smile meant it was worth it. He’d opened a door without checking the peep-hole because he was safe, because he was growing up in a world where knocks on doors could be answered confidently, and that was enough of a trade for all the scars hatching Adon’s skin. 

Alarmed by Aphy’s cracking voice and sudden violence toward a stranger, Mess watched from his window as the barefoot man heaved himself up, pausing to steady against the wall, then limped away. Mess jumped at Aphy’s command to come eat dinner, trying to remember if she’d ever had a Grounder boyfriend. He studied with Chandris when she finally showed up, then laid in bed for the rest of the night, turning the pieces over in his mind because he was bored and Aphy knew someone he didn’t. The man’s smile, Aphy’s hatred, the bare feet, Aphy would never…. Messenger fell asleep because focusing too hard on anything made him tired now, and when he woke, it was before the sun lamps and with the horrifying epiphany: Adon. The Grounder was his brother. 

The Grounder was Doni and Mess hadn’t noticed. 

He pictured the man, then scrubbed away the scars and marks and put him in a Navy Academy uniform, deconstructing him like in the fashion games Chandris played, scrolling through selections until the jacket was too big, pants too long, shoes full of holes. Mess removed the alcohol smell and the stuttering gaze and folded around his own sick stomach with a quiet sob. It was Adon and Aphy had shoved him away. 

He didn’t confront his sister, but he began carrying around a pair of grav-boots in two sizes smaller than his own, riding the rails and searching for his no-longer-missing brother. The Flock had stopped chasing after them shortly after Adon had disappeared, and while Mess had always suspected that something bad had happened to Adon, he now understood it was something Aphy knew about, something that had broken him beyond what she considered a brother. Something he knew must have started with Lu-Bird. 

☆