Tipping back a glass bottle of cherry-lime soda at a booth on the darkened far side of the diner, Cairo Quimby was eavesdropping. This would have been a surprise to no one.

There wasn't anything else to do these days, on his time off from roaming the earth like a dandelion seed in the wind and collecting bounties. Listening, he'd long learned, was far superior to talking. One could talk for hours and hours and not say a thing, but listening always yielded beneficial results. He had heard many of the speaking-without-saying-anything-at-all sort, and was presently undecided on whether that or sickening silence was more insufferable.

Since the bird's departure from the nest, things had been fine. Five years and hundreds of bounties, hundreds of nights riding the train silently from city to city with the lights blurring past the windows, hundreds of near-deaths, hundreds of fights. There came a point when one became so ghostly he only could bear to live for the thrill of the chase, for the feeling of a motorcycle racing down the interstate and another wanted poster wadded up in his pocket—souvenirs. Some days, the thrill left him, and he was reduced to ashes, to nothing at all. Today was a day like that. No criminal to catch. No cash to collect. Only his empty soul and his thoughts, and the persistent muttering of the strangers across the diner.

"You know how it is," one of them was saying, his voice an unpleasant, growly rasp. "Breakin' the code left and right and usually they stay under the radar and no one stops 'em. But not this one. He's gotten the attention of the Court."

Cairo paid only idle attention to whatever they were droning on about, dipping his fries in generous helpings of ketchup. On days like this he could hardly muster the energy to eat at all, nevermind listen with a great deal of focus. The talking of the strangers was simply background noise to keep his mind at ease. He wondered where he would find himself tomorrow. He'd probably ride up to Seattle to find an easy picking of new jobs. It was getting exhausting doing cage fights to make up for the money he wasn't making, particularly because he wasn't any good at those. He usually wound up playing the loser.

"That Quimby fella's a goner," replied one of the others—there were three—and Cairo froze, a fry halfway to his mouth. His mind short-circuited briefly. Quimby? How many people around here were named Quimby? Had to be a coincidence, he thought—

"The man runs his hotel day and night, probably using unauthorized mag' for commercial purposes, flaunting it in the captain's face. I'm of a mind to snap 'im in half for the brazenness alone. Deserves to be hanged."

"But thems ain't the orders," the third stranger told the first harshly. "The orders is to get him to give it up. You'd be wise to remember your place, unless you wanna be the one in front of the Court."

Cairo's shaking fingers had clamped over his mouth, stifling his shallowed breathing. He could see it now, could see his parents at the desk of their hotel, smiling brightly at new customers. Nothing would have changed. But he'd changed, and so there was no coming back.

Except.

Except these men, In-Between enforcement officers by the sound of it, had something against his stepfather. He'd done something; broken the code. Whatever the hell that meant.

"What is it that he's keepin'?" asked the big, stupid one with the raspy voice. The one who'd corrected him shot him a glare.

"Not my place to tell. And whadda you care?"

"Just wantin' to know what we're after in the first place."

His companion licked his lips. "Two days ago," he began, after a beat of silence, "the captain sent in a spy. He reported back today a confirmation of the Unlawful in the building. It's protected within the place's walls, just like Cap' said. He can't touch it. We gotta coax it outta Quimby instead."

Cairo glanced around feverishly. The waitress who'd served him was gone, and given the hour, it was likely her shift was up. The head of the diner had vanished from the counter; presumably into the kitchen. It was just him and these three in the dining room, on opposite sides. He began to realize how suspicious this was. But they hadn't noticed him. Would they recognize him if they did? Probably not, but presumptions were dangerous.

What are you hiding, Father? What have you done?

"It's a shame, too. Richard used to be a pretty good guardsman. 'Till he married that whore."

Cairo began to cough, choking on lime soda, and the bottle tipped over, clinking audibly against a pepper shaker as its contents spilled over across the tablecloth. Three heads whipped in his direction. If they hadn't been aware of his presence before, they certainly would now.

He hardly had time to think of a plan to get out of there before things got messy. The three guardsmen were up in an instant, stalking towards him as though it was hunting season and he was prey. He jumped quickly out of his chair, backing towards the direction of the side door. He never made it that far. Where was the chef, again? The dining room grew incredibly large around him and Cairo was nothing, no one, a ghost.

"No," chuckled the big guy, sounding astonished. "It's just our lucky day, ain't it?"

Luck could go jump off a cliff, Cairo thought bitterly.

The shorter guy, the one who had the aura of being in charge, approached him slowly. Cairo remained in place, even when he could feel his hot breath on his face, even when his mind shrieked at him to escape. This time flight was not an option. He was surrounded and alone. An ugly smile etched itself into the man's skin, like it had been forced open with a scalpel. "You're Hattie's boy. Cairo."

Cairo's tongue was dry and heavy when he spoke. "You know my name."

"Oh, we know all your names. I need you to send Mr. Quimby a message for me. Yeah?"

Cairo's eyes flicked sharply to the others, and it was in that moment that he dropped his guard that he realized he'd made a mistake by catching their attention at all. He was jolted painfully by a sudden knee to his gut, doubling over. There was no time to recover. The next blow was to his jaw, knocking his head back.

He struggled to clear his head, forcing himself to regain focus. A headache flared behind his eyes as they darted frantically back and forth between his opponents, blurring everything before him. "Three-on-one doesn't seem fair," he found himself mumbling with a soft laugh as another fist connected with his face.

With a grunt, a harsh kick sent him stumbling into the counter, disoriented. A low growl escaped his throat. He hated having to use his quirks, but it seemed like in this instance he didn't have much choice. He wiped blood off his chin and glared, shutting his eyes. Snapping them open again, he now could see his left and his right at the same time, watching his opponents approach him from both sides. His right eye shimmered silvery-white as his second vision rotated to show him the full scope of the room. It flooded him with disgust, but there was nothing else to be done.

He lurched forward and swung.

Even with a more accurate picture of all his assailants at once, it was difficult to keep up with all the swift blows. Cairo elbowed someone in the ribs and socked another in the nose, but the hits kept coming; knocking him down only for him to spit blood on the floor and push himself to a standing position again. Through his expanded peripherals he caught sight of a stack of dishes on an abandoned nearby table. He ducked, whirled, and snatched one off, bringing it down with a forceful crack onto one of the guys' heads. It shattered and clattered to the floor in pieces, porcelain crunching beneath dirty boots.

The man he'd hit was the shorter one, the leader. He stumbled backward, bringing a hand to his face. "You'll pay for that, kid," he snarled, and the other two closed in on Cairo, wrestling him to the ground. He reached out and grabbed at an ankle that was aiming for his face, yanking with all his might and rolling to the side. Luckily, it wasn't the big guy, and the thin, lanky one lost his footing. But he wasn't anywhere close to being rid of all of them. As he fought to push himself up off the floor, a shoe collided with his chest, knocking the wind out of him. He used his second vision to watch the bigger guy advance on him from behind, his eye glowing and spinning in its socket. He wished that he could actually do something about it. That was the problem with his stupid quirks; they never proved useful when he needed them most.

"You can't run from this, Quimby," the leader said, pressing his heel deeper into Cairo's ribs. He gasped for breath. "Go home to your daddy. Remind him who he's crossed and how far we'll go to restore order." A steak knife glinted in his hands, and Cairo was sure he hadn't been holding one before. "And honestly, Quimby, it's so impolite not to look someone in the eye while they talkin' to you."

Searing, blinding pain came in the form of the knife plunging into his right eye with a ghastly squelch. Cairo screamed. He'd felt immense pain before, sure—but never like this. Never like this. Blood oozed down his face and dripped down his neck, as he thrashed and clawed beneath the stranger's hold. The knife was twisted around for a few indescribable, agonizing moments before being viciously yanked back again. He was sure at least most of his eye had gone with it.

He screamed until his voice was raw, shaking and rocking on the floor as the knife fell beside him, the footsteps of the guardsmen trailing away.

"Let this be a warning to you, kid," called the leader as he left. "Your family isn't above the law. And the consequences for defying the Court can get a lot worse than that."

The door slammed shut, the bell that usually chimed rattling fiercely against its frame, and with that, they were gone. Cairo was alone in the dimly lit diner, left to reel over the revelation that his family was in danger.

He couldn't see anything. He couldn't see. He brought trembling fingers to his eye socket and felt something sticky and gummy and disgusting left where his eye had once been, and—God.

His second vision.

It was gone.

━━ ⬫ ❪ ❖ ❫ ⬫ ━━

What were the chances he encountered that conversation? He kept replaying it in his head and the only two conclusions he could manage to come to were either that it was a trick of magic or they had known he was there and calculated the encounter. Cairo couldn't decide which idea he disliked more. But if that incident had been staged, he couldn't definitively trust any of what they'd said.

And yet, despite not trusting the validity of any of it, one thing was clear: someone was after his family, Court's Guard or not. He was living, breathing, bloody proof of it. And so despite burning with hatred for the entire situation, he was turning back—back to the place he'd swore never to return, back home.

Someone had to warn them.

Cairo entered the drugstore like a drunken man, dazed and swaying on his feet. Late-night shoppers shot him odd glances as he made his way through the aisles, picked up a random assortment of bandages and painkillers. He dumped it all on the checkout counter, rubbing his forehead. He was dreadfully lacking in energy and sleep but could think of nothing but the terrifying idea of his family, no matter how strange or dysfunctional, being targeted by the Court. As far as he knew, his parents had never done anything to upset the balance of things. For all their faults, they paid their dues and served their community well. And so he couldn't shake the increasingly disturbing feeling that his parents were not really the ones at the center of this.

Perhaps his past, the one he'd gotten oh-so-good at running from, he'd never managed to outrun after all.

He had loathed his eye, the one Tokyo had always taken to calling his 'sixth sense' or his 'third eye', which he always found ridiculous because he did not in fact have three. He did, though, suppose he had a sixth sense. Not anymore. Now that it was gone he missed it in a way that frustrated him, the same way one might miss the company of a former lover from a relationship gone sour or a parent who never did their child any good. He missed it and wished he didn't. Part of him felt naked without it; of course, this might have had something to do with the empty socket and gushing blood where it had used to rest.

It did not escape his notice that they had chosen this eye over the other, as a clear and powerful threat: No magic is permanent. We can tear your power from you in the blink of an eye.

The woman at the register was watching him with eyes wide as platters. When she opened her mouth to speak she became afflicted with that terribly infectious disease that everyone seemed to catch when they couldn't process something out of the ordinary: a sudden inability to form a coherent sentence. "Your—your eye," was all she managed to stutter.

"Yeah," he said evenly, scratching at a fresh bruise on his jaw. "If you could get me something to cover that up, that'd be great."

She stood there shell-shocked for a moment more before regaining her composure and disappearing to rummage around. She returned shortly after with a basic medical patch, and began to ring up all his items.

Cairo dug in his pockets for cash, wincing slightly when he realized he was getting it bloody. Oh well. The cashier was too afraid not to take it, her hands shaking violently as she stuffed the bills clumsily in the register.

"Um, sir... do you—do you need any help?" she asked finally, pointedly avoiding eye contact. "I can call a hospital."

Cairo rolled his neck and picked up his things, knuckles aching and face screaming at him to roll over and die. He was in more pain than he'd ever experienced in his life, and yet there was something gratifying about this night. For the first time in five years he had a purpose. He shot her a cursory glance before turning towards the door.

"Thanks. I'll take care of it from here."

- 2520 Words -