Chapter 5 Ares
Ares
He’s lost count of how many people he’s asked tonight.
Always the same question. Always the same blank, unhelpful stares, the same crushing replies.
“Have you seen this boy?”
“No, sorry.”
“Please . . . have you seen—”
“No.”
Still, he braces himself to try again, taking in a deep breath as he approaches the vendor outside the subway station. The
aroma of roasted sweet potatoes billows through the air toward him, and his stomach grumbles, despite himself. He hasn’t had
anything to eat since finishing school hours ago.
The vendor glances up from his makeshift furnace, where the sweet potatoes are squeezed around the fire in a circle, their
undersides caramelizing to a deep brown, golden sap oozing out. “Want a sweet potato?” the vendor asks gruffly.
Ares shakes his head. “Have you seen this boy before?” He holds up the photo of his brother that he’s been carrying around everywhere with him: a Polaroid taken on the first day of school, Luke’s smile stiffer than it normally was, his curls brushed back and shirt collar buttoned too tight, something Luke had complained about before he left the house that morning.
For years now, he’s presented it to strangers on the street like a salesman trying to hand out flyers, stopping by every spot
he’d ever taken Luke: the arcade where he thrashed Luke in basketball, but Luke beat him repeatedly at Mario Kart; the swings
where he’d taken Luke as a kid, pushing him high up into the air with one hand until Luke swore he could touch the sky; the
aquarium where Luke would memorize the names of all the fish and point them out to him; the grocery store that always stocked
Luke’s favorite brand of orange soda and salt-and-vinegar crisps; the astronaut-themed restaurant where Luke had celebrated
his tenth birthday.
“No.” The vendor barely even glances at the photo. “Never seen him before.”
“Take a closer look,” he insists. “Please—”
“Do you want a sweet potato or not?” the vendor demands, swatting the photo aside. “If you’re not here to buy something, then
stop blocking the line.”
Ares clenches his jaw and slides the photo back into his wallet, careful not to crease it. He can practically hear the policemen’s
voices echoing in his head, their pitying tone. Give it up, kid. It’s best you accept that he’s gone.
But there’s the vision, he reminds himself. His last thread of hope. He had seen his brother in the lake. And the visions must mean something.
He joins the crowds swarming down the steps to the subway, all of them in varying states of hunger and exhaustion.
Follows them past the automatic glass gates and blinking lights signaling the next train.
When the doors slide open, everyone pushes forward at once, sweaty bodies squishing against him, obnoxious elbows banging into his side.
He manages to snag a seat in the corner, next to a middle-aged man in a wrinkly suit.
He’s about to close his eyes for the rest of the ride when he sees the man’s phone screen.
It’s a photo of Chanel.
A recent post, the comment section already overflowing with praise and marriage proposals. She’s somewhere sunny and beautiful,
her arms stretched above her head like she’s trying to reach the sky, her white lace top sliding up with the movement. She’s
smiling so wide you’d think she was getting paid for it—then again, she probably is.
He stares, somehow more jarred by her digital appearance on this man’s phone than if she had popped up next to him in person.
He shouldn’t even be surprised that a stranger on the subway is following Chanel Cao; a good quarter of the national population
follows her. She’s the socialite of socialites, a fuerdai known for being more than a fuerdai, seemingly destined or designed
from birth to become the icon she is today: gorgeous in an obvious, aspirational way, wealthy, young, popular, well connected,
with a circle of equally fun, stylish, photogenic friends. Someone who very evidently had grown up adored, who was given everything
she asked for. He can’t imagine what that’s like.
But for all her fame, he hadn’t given much thought to her—not until she had seen the vision too.
And the visions had changed, once she appeared. The first few times he’d visited the lake, he’d seen himself standing alone at the Sky Restaurant, as if waiting for someone. And he’d seen the fire, the house burning down, and his little brother just across the street.
He suspects now that the person he was meant to be waiting for at the Sky Restaurant was Chanel. They were meant to cross paths, and she was meant to follow him to the lake, because once she did, new visions had
surfaced.
Him shoving someone down in a boxing ring, the cavelike room dim and unfamiliar to him, his knuckles bloody.
A man with a crescent scar, slinking through the crowds at a nightclub. Club Sixty-Eight Hours, the name glowing neon pink above the bar counter. Posters advertising the club’s special new blue lagoon cocktail, available on the eighth, which is just two weeks away.
He and Chanel together at a tattoo parlor, her sitting down right beside him like it was the natural thing to do, while the
tattoo artist cleaned his needles.
He can’t make sense of the visions, but the fact that they’ve grown clearer, more detailed, must mean that he’s on the right
track. That all his actions so far have led him closer and closer to being reunited with his brother at the fire. Like asking
his father to transfer him to Airington International, after he’d seen himself wearing the Airington school uniform in the
vision.
The train screeches against the tracks, pulling him back through time.
Beside him, the man is still staring at Chanel’s photo. Then, slowly, he zooms all the way in to her chest, as if to try and see through the fabric.
Ares feels a sharp surge of revulsion, his mind flashing red. He almost can’t believe it, even as he’s witnessing it. That
the man, twice Chanel’s age, has the nerve to be doing this—and in public. Without shame.
When the train rattles again, Ares pretends to lose his balance and knocks the phone straight from the man’s hand. It goes
flying to the floor between them, where it lands with a crack.
“What the fuck?” The man scowls and picks up his phone. Ares is glad to see that the screen has shattered, a spiderweb of
fissures expanding from the cracked corner. The photo is gone, the display showing nothing except tiny colored pixels.
Ares doesn’t apologize.
The man swears under his breath, but the train has slowed at the next stop, and he only glowers at Ares before filing out
the door, cradling his broken phone in his hands.
As soon as he’s gone, another man takes his place in the seat next to Ares.
He’s dressed in all black—black leather jacket, black gloves, black ripped jeans, though they’ve faded to the point that they
could pass as gray—and there’s a kind of restless energy to him, even as he slouches against the seat. They ride two more
stops in silence when he stands up and suddenly swipes Ares’s wallet from his pocket.
He’s so fast that Ares barely sees him do it, just feels that his jacket is lighter. When he jerks his head up, the thief
is already rushing out the doors right as they’re closing.
“Hey,” Ares yells, leaping to his feet. The doors slam against his shoulders, so hard that someone gasps. But he squeezes through
them, tugging the end of his leather jacket free from where it had been jammed, and chases after the thief down the platform.
The thief glances back, eyes wide, and keeps running. Clearly he hadn’t expected Ares to follow. This isn’t even Ares’s stop.
And maybe Ares would’ve given up, simply let him take the wallet and go, except Luke’s photo is in there.
They race through the subway station, past the throngs of commuters, then out into the night, down an empty alley that looks
like the perfect home for serial killers and ghosts.
Ares ignores the needle-sharp stitch in his side and lengthens his strides until he’s just a few inches away from the thief.
He reaches out and seizes him by the collar. “Give it back,” he gasps.
The thief jerks around. The next thing Ares sees is the flash of a black-gloved fist, but he doesn’t feel it, because he has
already ducked, his own hands flexing. Muscle memory. Years of boxing training kicking in. So it would come down to this.
All right. He feels something spark to life inside him—not excitement, nothing that good, but anticipation. He wants to fight the whole world, but he’ll settle for this one man.
When he swings his first punch, hears the crack of it against bone, his body aches with relief.
The thief staggers back but doesn’t falter. He comes barreling at Ares, and now they’re really fighting, knuckles against
flesh, brute force and vicious determination. Even the bright, blunt pain of each collision is a release, so much better than
the suffocating feeling Ares has been battling against alone.
“You’re not bad at that,” the thief says suddenly, appreciatively, stopping mid-fight like they’re two friends catching up over coffee.
Ares doesn’t lower his fists. For all he knows, this could be a trap. “Shut up.”
“No, for real,” the thief says. “Who taught you how to fight like that?”
Ares glowers at him. “What’s it to you?”
“It could mean a lot.” The thief nods once, as if having decided something important. “You’ve got a super solid foundation,
good instincts. Not even Hongdan was this fast, and he almost made it to the finals. . . .”
“What?”
“I should’ve picked another target, that’s my bad,” the thief says. “But you know, I couldn’t have robbed anyone else without
breaking my rules.”
“You have rules for . . . robbing people?”
“Course I have rules.” He looks affronted by the question. “What do you think I am? Some kind of monster?”
Ares chooses not to reply to that.
“No, I don’t attack pregnant women, kids under ten, or any old people over sixty. Or anyone with dogs,” he adds. “Certainly
not dogs. I could never do that, couldn’t risk hurting an innocent puppy.”
“What about cats?” Ares says dryly.
But the thief’s expression is contemplative. “Depends on the cat. They can be pretty nasty sometimes.”
Ares can feel his patience wearing thin. “Look, man, I don’t give a shit about your rules or the wallet or whatever. Take
the money if you want,” he says. “But let me have the photo inside.”
The thief raises his brows and flips open the wallet, extracting the Polaroid using two gloved fingers. Ares moves to snatch it back, but the thief is faster, holding it just out of reach and examining it in a pale stream of moonlight. “Wait. I know that boy.”
Ares hears the words as if from somewhere deep underwater. He doesn’t let himself believe it. It can’t be. Too many times,
he’s dared to hope, only for nothing to materialize out of it. Still, his voice wobbles over the question. “You . . . know
him?”
“Yeah, course.” The thief rubs his jaw. “I’ve seen him around.”
The world seems to slow. He can scarcely breathe. “You’re sure it’s him?”
“Well, he’s a bit older now, isn’t he? Fifteen or sixteen or something? Smart boy. Photographic memory, no wonder why Long
Ge likes to keep him around.” The thief squints off into the distance, as if trying to remember. “Started working for him,
what, three years ago?”
Three years ago. That’s around how long Luke has been missing. “Where is he now?” Ares demands. He isn’t even sure if he’s
speaking properly anymore; his lips feel numb, and there’s a high ringing in his ears. “Can you bring me to him?”
The thief merely extends a hand as if Ares hasn’t spoken. “I’m Sangui.”
Ares wants to slap it away. He doesn’t care what the thief is called, doesn’t care about anything except . . . “Where is he?”
he repeats, keeping his own hands balled into fists at his sides. “Who is he with? Is he okay?”
“Now, now, don’t be in such a rush.” Sangui is studying him with open interest. It’s a measured, evaluative look, much like how wealthy men might study the racehorses in a stable before placing their bets.
Ares can practically see Sangui gauging his stamina and endurance and market value in real time.
“Here’s the deal. I’d love to help you, really, nothing would make my little heart happier, but I don’t have much of a say in the matter.
It’s all up to Long Ge. And if you want something from Long Ge—well, you’ll have to
fight for it.” The sharp edge of a grin. “Literally.”
“What do you mean? Who is Long Ge?” Ares asks, though it sounds more like a plea.
Sangui’s eyes gleam. “There’s this place—we call it the Cave. You ever been to a fight club before? Or seen one in a movie?”
But it’s not the movies that Ares’s mind jumps to. It’s the vision. The one of him in the boxing ring, drawing blood. The
dark room he’s never entered before. This must be it.
“I know what a fight club is,” he says. “When can I join?”
“Not so fast,” Sangui says with a laugh. “We don’t just let anyone in. You’ll have to prove yourself first—”
“How?” Ares asks at once, his heart beating so fast it hurts. Whatever Sangui says next, it doesn’t matter. He’ll do anything.
Maybe Sangui can see the desperation in his face, because after a moment, he nods. “Meet me at seven on Sunday morning. The
same stop where we got off earlier. Understood?”
This time, when Sangui holds out his hand, Ares takes it and shakes it firmly, even though it’s splattered with his own blood.