The first thing Michael told her to do was slow down.

“Start again, from the beginning,” he said while zipping up his boots.

“I snuck into Brad’s house so I could try and get some leads on his conspiracy and see what I could do with that and he–he was calling his friends and they want to chloroform me and take me somewhere and shove my body in a cooler and–”

“But how did you get to James’s phone?”

“She’s at my house,” the boy in question said from a distance. Michael grunted assent and reached for the hoodie he usually used for payback. It was easy to have one piece of clothing specifically for getting dirty and bloody.

“Stay there,” he commanded. “I’m coming to meet you. Are they going to come for you?”

“I–I–I think so Brad looked at me like he was going to do it right then and I’m scared, I only have my dagger, and I don’t have my phone and I can’t contact you.”

James muttered something out of earshot, and Michael yanked open a desk drawer to slide a lockpick set and pocket flashlight into his pants. He didn’t know what was being said, but if it was important, James would have told him directly. Probably just something to calm Sarah down. He slammed the drawers shut and reached underneath the desk, muscle memory guiding his arm to the exact spot he was looking for.

The hunting knife was covered in a thin layer of dust, having seen several months pass since it had been used, but a tap on the edge of the desk shook it all off and the blade was as sharp as ever. The holster was taped underneath the desk where it had been, and he looped it around his waist, cinching the buckle tight and sliding the sheath to above his thigh. He would need to draw quickly on this one.

The duct tape sheath was in another drawer, and he stuck that onto the holster belt over the other thigh. It was empty for now, and he ducked into his closet one more time to get the thin piece of metal he had shaped into a lockpick for a car door.

“Am I going to need to bring body bags?” He asked as he slid the pick into one of his pants pockets.

Sarah gasped, but managed to respond. “No, no, you don’t–no, we don’t need them.”

“Noted.” He grabbed one anyway and left his room, hurrying down the stairs and towards the kitchen. One steak knife in the drawer had been sharpened past the others, with additional effort placed into maintaining the serration. It was meant to mar and cripple, a use that Michael frequently found useless for being stealthy and quick. But in this situation, he felt that would be more than necessary.

“Michael, what–what are you planning?”

“We’re going to deal with the problem.” The steak knife went into the sheath as Michael went for the garage. “I’m coming to you, and we’ll go meet Brad, and sort this out.”

James yelped something in the background as Sarah sputtered. “Michael, wh–are you going to kill him?”

“It depends on his response. If he backs off, then no. If he doesn’t, then yes.”

“Can we try not to kill him?” “Probably not.”

He hit the button to open the garage door as he stepped out, grabbing his keys off of the hook. “I’m getting in my car now. I’ll be there in a few minutes.” He clicked the call off and returned the phone to his pocket, pressing the button on the outside to close the garage as he passed and walked outside towards his car. His backseat was empty, and he threw the body bag into it before starting the car, immediately shifting into reverse and driving towards James’s house.

Nothing appeared wrong from the outside as he pulled up, a handful of minutes later. The windows were all intact, the door closed, and the house itself was as clean and put-together as it usually was. The lawn was still clipped short and the single sapling growing in the center of the yard was still small, none of the paint peeling yet. It appeared intact and safe.

He parked the car on the road and got out, leaving the bag in the trunk and pulling his gloves on as he strode up to the front door, taking in the surrounding area. The sun had dipped below the top of the forest long ago, and the shadows of the trees themselves had all but blended in with the sky, a blue so dark it was almost entirely black that could only point out shadows by the tiniest dip in brightness. Everything was in the darkness, monotonous shadows only broken by the occasional light sources. It would have been very easy to switch a car’s headlights off and surprise somebody.

James opened the door after the first knock and gave him a look of disappointment.

“This is not what I meant by giving people slack.”

“We’ll define what slack means later,” Michael replied as he brushed straight past him. Sarah was sitting on a couch in the living room, her head in her hands and slowly breathing. She perked up as he entered, James on his heels.

“Mikey, you can’t just pick a side like this. I meant letting somebody get away without payback, not straight up getting between people in a fight.”

“Those two are the same things, James,” he said as he peeked out between closed blinds. “Interceding on one side of payback is the same as picking a side in a cafeteria fight.”

“Not like this!” James leaned against the back of the couch. “There’s some people you don’t pick fights against, man. Brad’s not going to hesitate to kill you if he sees you now.”

Michael turned to look out the back door. “I would be surprised if he didn’t.” It appeared clear, and he turned to Sarah. “How long ago did Brad see you, from now?”

“Oh, don’t ignore me!” James interjected, hopping over the back of the couch. “You don’t get to just show up like this is a personal war against you now when you’ve been acting like everything’s below you for the last two years. You don’t get to just decide that all of a sudden you’re interfering like some world police bullshit. Answer the question, Mikey.”

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“You haven’t asked me anything.” Michael kept his voice flat. “There’s nothing to answer.”

“God dammit fine but–why now?” James crossed his arms. “Why is now the moment you decide to hop on in? Not three weeks ago, not a month ago, not at any payback request this year or last year, not since you just stopped killing people. Why now?”

There was a faint tremor in his voice, one that Michael only recognized because he had heard it before, when they were younger, when James had been a child and scared of a homework problem or of somebody sneaking through his backyard when they had been watching movies together. When they had been trying to make some model train kit that James’s grandfather had bought, and neither of them had been able to keep a part glued in place for longer than ten seconds. When they had been young and trying to have fun and something went wrong but James was willing to show that he was upset, and Michael was willing to deal with it because they were friends.

Michael blinked.

That hadn’t been that long ago. Not at all.

The twist in James’s lip, the tension in his eyes, corrected his question.

Why not him?

Michael didn’t know. He did, on the one hand. He knew exactly why. James cared too much about Ravenville. He placed so much stock in the rules and all the small customs that made up the network of death, trusting that they were infallible and true, that every answer could be found in the blood left on a blade. He believed in the violence, not merely that it was the right thing, but that the meaning was both in the violence and in whatever the violence led to. That there was an end goal to be reached and that he could make it there, chasing it almost unthinkingly.

It wasn’t his fault. Michael had never made some sort of standing policy, plastering posters around town stating that he was now going to be the judge of all payback rules and otherwise staying out of it. It had been a slow detachment as the allure of expertise in violence continued to fall away once he had realized that there was nothing that anybody seemed to think was there. He hadn’t chosen to stop. He had just drifted away from it.

James had just been swept up along the way.

Michael swallowed, meeting James’s gaze. “This is interesting,” he said, one of the truths coming to his lips easily. “It’s entertaining. I haven’t seen a grand conspiracy like this before, it’s novel. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen something novel here.”

“Am I not novel enough for you then?” The words oozed something that he couldn’t place.

Michael didn’t have an answer. James wasn’t novel. He was James. People weren’t novel. Sarah wasn’t novel. What she wanted was interesting, what she offered was new.

What she did meant something to her. She was wrong, but she was wrong in a new way. Part of him wanted to see how the train would crash. Morbid curiosity, like watching a car speed towards the spike strip he knew had been laid hours ago.

He’d come because he’d wanted to make sure she survived. She had called him for help, and he had answered.

“People aren’t novel.” He answered with a straight face. “It’s nothing you did or didn’t do. She just called for urgent help.”

James held his gaze with a cold stare that called up so much. That reminded him of so much, and asked him to remember yet more. He asked Michael, without words or pleas. He asked, why now? Why so long?

He thought of a smile, dulled by the lack of excitement, but still keeping on anyway.

No answer came to mind. He stood there, mouth just hanging open, and let the silence fill the air.

James blinked, and sunk.

“Fine, fine. Whatever. Whatever. Just–whatever. I don’t have a spare cellphone or anything, and you already have a bug out bag. Do you want me to let you out the back door and pretend that I don’t know a thing if Brad asks?”

Michael nodded, inhaling and exhaling a deep breath. “Yes. Don’t tell them a thing. Thank you for letting Sarah come inside and use your phone.”

Sarah nodded furiously, face much less red than when he had last looked at her, but James limply waved it off. “It’s whatever. One call doesn’t up the phone bill. Brad’s house isn’t that far behind me, but you know that. Just go handle your shit.”

He nodded again and tapped Sarah on the shoulder, gesturing for her to leave. She stood up and followed behind him as he walked out of the house, closing the door behind her as Michael stopped on James’s front step.

Everything was dark. Everywhere that there wasn’t light was somewhere that could hold somebody or something, every turn in the road somewhere that a car full of angry boys with knives and bats could round in surprise. The night was full of threats.

It always was. This time they were simply against him.

Sarah coughed. “So, are you guys still friends, or…”

“I’d say we are. We don’t go to parties together, but we still hang out occasionally.” He stretched out his shoulders.

“Sure. It just uh, sounded like there was something that had gone wrong in the past?”

He sideyed her. “It’s not your business.” She didn’t get to know about the break-in yet.

“Alright, fair.” She raised her hands, backing off, only to suddenly tense up and start glancing around. “Is it safe out here?”

“Unless Brad intends to kill us with a bow, which would be very difficult because he doesn’t have one, yes.” Michael checked the knives on his belt and began walking to the car.

James had been right, about this not being what he meant. He had wanted to ingratiate himself with the popular kids, to become one of the people that openly bragged about their violence because they thought themselves in an unreachable position. He’d sought Michael’s help to get there, time and time again, trying to continue his own journey even as Michael made it clear he would never engage with or being engaged by any of those people. It was hardly something he could be blamed for, watching Michael show up at the first sign of violence against people after he had spent months convincing him to go to parties. He was showing slack, in the wrong direction than where James had wanted.

It was nothing against James. It was just in the opposite direction from what Michael wanted. If Brad backed down, then he would give him the slack of letting him walk away alive. If he didn’t, then he wouldn’t, and that would be the end of it.

James had said it himself. Brad wasn’t going to hesitate to kill him now. And there was only one response to somebody like that.

Decide to kill him first.