Adon did not compete with the rest of the Ground for favor or infamy. He did not join the Quartet or hide from his problems in the Arcade. He avoided Sophia Silver at absolutely all costs, and only responded to Artemis Diamond when there was a holiday and he wanted to love Aphy and Mess the only way he knew anymore. And anonymous gifts required credits. He didn’t answer Mess’ calls or messages, but persisted numbly through the cold, reading them over and over again any time he couldn’t find the edges between himself and the frozen Grounders he tripped over while searching through the ancient foundation of Old Caldera for whatever his clients wanted. 

Adon eventually added Phios, Nika, and Xeri to his comms. Then Nyx because she pouted old-lady puppy-eyes at him until he handed his phone over, complaining that he’d probably need a new one in a few weeks and they’d have to do it all over again. She’d only smacked his head and slid his phone back to him with a wink. He never saved Arty’s comms. He’d easily memorized Mess and Aphy’s numbers, eagerly punching them into each new phone replacing whatever frozen monstrosity he’d broken on a find—and each new phone came from Y, who always programmed herself in before handing it over.

Twenty-five became twenty-six and Adon officially stopped drinking because it was boring, didn’t make smiling any easier, and because the last time he’d drank with Phaios, he’d woken up one toss or turn away from rolling off a ledge into a churning acid sea. He refused to die without Lu, recounting his twenty-six tallies with an ironic scoff, remembering all the times he’d fought to survive, and trusting that his future self would figure it out. He hadn’t yet, but if he was going to die so easily, he figured he better take at least half the Quartet with him rather than leave an ambiguous question about whether he was actually a Jumper or just another body freezing on the ground or melted into the black glass brick tossed carelessly into the wall. If he was going to die, it would be after. After Mess graduated from any school, after Aphy found a job she liked, after Y said it was okay, after Lu begged him not to, then he’d drift out to sea until he drowned. Or maybe he wouldn’t want to anymore. Future-Adon was remarkably unreliable.

Y smacked the back of Adon’s helmet, giggling in their open proximity comms until she caught sight of his face behind his visor and cut herself off with a hand-signal asking if he was okay. Adon nodded once, mounted his bike, and ignored her sigh that meant she knew he was lying. Adon, Xeri, Nika, and Y raced around the track until all their heaviest thoughts vanished into laughter, Y lapping them on a lighter bike she was test-running, popping wheelies and landing impossible jumps that made even Adon hold his breath, then speeding past just close enough to hear her howling laughter stutter through her peaked mic. 

Adon relaxed behind her, leaning into the turn like she taught him, cornering low and popping up in expert form as Nika paced him. 

“Sias killed his girlfriend,” Nika’s voice crackled over their comms, “did you hear?”

“What the fuck!” Xeri gaped, slowing instinctually, grumbling into her mic as she wobbled and fell behind. She glared at Nika’s back with a shout, “that’s a dirty trick!”

“I didn’t mean it as a trick. It’s a request,” Nika remained even with Adon, staring him down through her blue-tinted visor. “She was the best mech in the new batch. I really liked her. Even Phai approved her work.”

“So?” Adon didn’t like where she was going, focusing on his own race line as Nika encroached, eyeing Y skidding ahead of them and disappearing into some new obstacle-ridden tunnel like a pinball clicking against neon bumpers.

“You knew her too,” Nika whined, refusing to say her request so blatantly, “and I can’t ask Y.”

“Why not?” Y jumped the track rail behind them, her bike hovering an expert millimeter behind Nika’s tire as she drafted them.

“Remember Tiremi?”

“Oh shit,” Y swerved to Nika’s otherside, “isn’t she a Silver cousin or something?”

“She was,” Nika spat darkly, “that’s why I can’t ask you. So… if I win,” She turned to Adon, pointing toward the checkered finishline, “you have to take the job okay? Just find him.”

“I don’t find people,” Adon glared at the pavement flashing by, debating whether his arms were too tired to jump the whole bike onto the rail Y had left open.

“Fine!” Nika sneered, “don’t find him. Just kill him.”

“I don’t…” he couldn’t say he didn’t kill people, Y would laugh. “I don’t want to.”

“If I beat you, do it. Track rules. Just bring him in, I’ll do the rest. Come on, how many times have you found Y’s brothers?”

“And d’Arjon?” Y cackled unhelpfully.

Adon glared at her but said nothing.

Xeri caught up to them, annoyed, “isn’t Sias the one causing all the problems anyway? Running back to Gideon as soon as there are rumors of an early exit?” 

Adon rolled his eyes, “I’ll give him an early exit.”

Y snorted, all four of them following Nika for their last lap. 

“I’ll tell your brother where to find you if you don’t,” Nika threatened.

Adon sighed, unphased, “I’ll tell Phaios why you had to close Booking Hall 3—”

Nika slammed her brakes.

“Hey!” Y swerved and sped up to avoid a crash, then pushed her way between them, “stop it! No fights on the track!” She kicked a foot at Nika, then flattened herself to catch up to Adon until her visor screen registered their comm connection. “Hey! Focus Doni, you scrape the skin off, I’m not tattooing it again. Messenger is fine. Don’t worry, slow down!”

Adon glanced at his speed in the upper right corner of his visor screen, surprised at the triple digits. He let off the accelerator with a long exhale as the others caught up. 

“My mom’s always got an eye out,” Xeri added, blocking Nika from pulling up on Adon’s other side.

“Nik,” Y huffed to her right, trying to de-escalate the tension between them, to shift Adon’s focus away from Nika’s accidental threat to his brother. Nika liked to throw explosives first before checking the package, and while Y liked this about her in theory, in reality it meant she didn’t participate in Y’s stable and ongoing chaos, but simply made her own dramatic exit like some Mid-gate magician. Y rolled her eyes and threw a dirty look at Nika, “you know Phaios is weird about Adon, don’t give them more reasons to almost kill each other, please.”

“Yeah,” Xeri joined Y’s efforts to distract, “why is Phai so weird about Doni?” She wanted the gossip, the story they kept from her, the reason Adon had responded to Phaios’ regular and expected, albeit annoying, joke of relocating pacer’s bikes during a practice run with such overactive violence—which everyone but her seemed to understand. But just like all the other times she’d asked, Nika, Y, and Adon all shrugged, equally bewildered, shaking their heads. She was beginning to think only Phaios knew. 

“Well… beat me to the end and I’ll leave it alone,” Nika accelerated, Adon remaining on her predictable tail.

Nika caught sight of Phaios waving from the empty stands and ducked into the next exit ramp, leaving her bike in the garage with several scathing notes to the mechanics. 

Adon scowled at the checkerboard screen flashing the final lap announcem;ent across his visor as he passed the startline sensor. Y and Xeri’s engines whined closer as they shifted from playful to competitive on the final lap.

Nika had beat him to the finish line from their staggered positions in their mock trial, but Adon figured if he finished the last official lap, he could say Nika had abandoned the race, weaseling out of her stupid trap on a technicality. Y flew ahead, leaving Adon and Xeri behind as she dropped her shoulder and knee into the final curve. She drifted over the finish, revving the bike at Nika, Phaios, and his guest, wondering if she should have X or Leroy look into Sias before Adon could chip anymore of himself away. The techs ran over to take the bike, handing her the clipboard to complete her test-run survey. 

Adon and Xeri parked behind her along the track, calling through the chainlink barrier up at Nika in the stands. The adrenaline of the last lap had broken the tension, but Xeri was still determined to answer her curiosity about why Phaios was so skittish around Adon. Armed with her awkward questions, Xeri giggled beside Y, debating which to ask first, bent on shocking the truth out of him as they pulled off their borrowed helmets and handed them over to the waiting techs. They hopped the gate and started up the cement steps of the stadium seats, shoulders knocking into each other as leg muscles cramped and stretched. 

Behind them, Adon’s hands hovered around his helmet clasp, shooing the tech away by tapping the side of his helmet because it was his and he wasn’t handing it over. Phaios and his dumb team played too many stupid tricks for Adon to trust leaving or borrowing any equipment. He waved to the mech taking his bike, waited for the split stats to download, then gripped his helmet to pull it off, following Xeri and Y up the stairs, then stopped. Adon froze as his eyes landed on Phaios staring down at him with that unnerving guilt Adon had never figured out. Adon’s grip loosened on his helmet, hands falling warrily to his side, because there, beside Phaios, casual and clean and healthy, sat Lu, now painfully out of place at the track he’d grown up on. 

Adon clenched his jaw, pulled his half-removed glove back on, and took the stairs two at a time. He pushed gently between Xeri and Y all the way to the middle of the section where Phaios stood, blocking the row where Lu sat protectively, his hands half-raised in apology. Adon scoffed, gripping Phai’s collar and pulling him close with a quiet hiss only Phaios could hear, “you tell him where I am, I kill you on purpose. You drop little hints so he figures it out himself, and I’ll kill you on accident.” He shoved Phaios back, keeping hold of his jacket, debating with a glance at Lu from behind his tinted visor, then socked Phaios hard in the gut and continued up the stairs, two at a time, ignoring Nika’s curses, Xeri’s questions, and Lu’s confused expression following him out. 

Adon knew Phaios wouldn’t reveal him to Lu, knew that it had been an accident, that he was so rarely at the track these days, Phaios couldn’t have known. Phaios would get Lu out without knowing Adon was there because he was just as guilty for what happened to Adon, but without the grace of Lu's ignorant naivete that could pretend Adon was some angel academic of the Uppers. Phaios had known where the Flock was dragging Adon, he’d helped Lu trick Adon the same way he’d been tricked, with the illegal bio-scanners that somehow worked on the Ground, despite all the Asylum credit security. Phaios had done what had been done to himself and he hated himself for it. Adon hated him for it too, but he didn’t want to be hated, no matter how much he deserved it. Adon understood suddenly, every strange frown or lingering gaze from Phaios: apologies, all of them, because Phaios had known, because Phaios was guilty. But Adon was too cold for sorries anymore. His cracks had become trenches, the continents of himself drifted too far apart to heal; he was not broken by mere rifts, but oceans, and Phaios couldn’t swim well enough to save him.

Adon slammed through the vestibule doors. He heard Y follow, but didn’t stop for her to catch up, jumping on his bike and riding down dangerous inclines directly to the ground. He stormed into his greenhouse, tossing his helmet and phone on the stairs of the loft, over-feeding the dogs and cats, watering the plants and setting his drip-lines to a timer, securing the facility as best he could against raiders and the cold, but leaving enough exits so the animals could still escape if they had to, then he whirled manically into his orange coat and stormed out with the a single knife in his pocket, searching for the edges of the ocean, led only by a memory of following Medo to the acid-sea only once. 

☆