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The bass was a living thing.
It was thick and punishing, pressing into your chest as if it meant to crack your ribs and grind the bones down to powder. Neon slashed the air in colors not found in daylight, painting faces into masks, disguising sweat as glitter, and hunger as shine. The make-shift club was a maze of bodies, all flesh and blood. It was a place where secrets changed hands faster than money.
And somewhere in the chaos, you were watching.
Boy Kavalier knew it.
He’d been told stories. They were half rumors, half dares. He knew that if he wanted you, there was no summoning you, no middleman to bring you out of whatever dark corner you crawled in. You didn’t answer to calls or any amalgam of credits.
The only way to step into your world and earn the right to speak was to find you.
So here he was, sleeves rolled, jaw tight, scanning the swirl of dancers. Boy Kavalier had been warned, too; you never appeared as yourself, not outright. You lived in disguise, shadowed your face to change it every night, and above all else, you were a test, a game. You moved in mirrors, shadows, and doubles who wore what you wore just to add to the chase.
And tonight, if he chose wrong, he’d be dismissed as another desperate fool that failed to decipher your riddle.
There was a woman with your mouth leaning against the bar. Another, with your eyes who was laughing in the crush of bodies. And then, someone with your cadence in the tilt of their head slipped past him in the strobe, just close enough to brush his sleeve before vanishing into the crowd.
It wasn’t about recognition—not really. It was about knowing the difference between a disguise and a presence. Between what was borrowed and what belonged to you, what was yours.
Tonight, your tricks were tailored. You questioned Boy Kavalier. Whether he could truly trust his instincts. Or read the lie in the glamor of neon and smoke to find you, the one who made the game worth playing.
Naturally, Boy Kavalier walked through the underground room like he owned it. His shoulders were lax, annoyingly-so, smirk sharp, dressed down, but gleaming with a confidence that had gotten him everything he’s wanted. He had the look of a man humoring the room, like everyone else was playing dress-up while he was the only one who’d read the script.
Yet, his eyes moved sharp, hunting. He knew the truth, that bone-deep and bitter one: this was the one room he couldn’t walk into and automatically command. Because somewhere in the shifting crowd, was you. The only person who could match him.
Rival wasn’t a word he liked. Suggested parity, suggested weakness, but in the marrow of him, he knew. In truth, he’d put off this meeting too long. You hadn’t made it easy, but he had made it worse.
A lesser man would falter. Boy Kavalier only smirked, straightened, and leaned into the game.
“Cute.” His voice was lost in all the noise, but he still spoke as if you could hear him. “Parlor tricks.”
He cut across the floor, deliberately approaching the woman at the bar. Let the room see him choose. Let you see him gamble. She looked up with a sly smile that wasn’t yours, and he shook his head before she even spoke.
“Not you.” Always dismissive, he turned without apology.
It was another wrong choice, another decoy from the crowd that he waved off like a bored king tossing aside the wrong jewel. His arrogance was a shield, polished to blinding, but behind his eyes there was something more. It was a glint that betrayed he wasn’t here to win a game. He was here because he couldn’t stay away any longer.
Then—
“Boy Kavalier.” Your voice was low and close, threading through the music. “Took you long enough.”
He turned, slow and deliberate, the smirk crawling back onto his mouth like he’d never lost it.
“Apologies, I like to make an entrance.” Boy Kavalier said, as if the pause had been his to control.
“You mean you like to stall.” You didn’t step closer. You didn’t need to. He’d already walked into your world, and the floorboards bent to your weight here. “I heard about the ship.”
“Everyone heard about the ship.” For a flicker, his jaw clenched.
“Yet, most people aren’t dumb enough to think they can out-think wreckage.” Your line landed like a hook. Made his smirk sharpen.
“Careful. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were jealous. I’ve built empires on scraps like this. What could you have done with the same tools?”
You laughed. It was low, rough, too real for the glittering lie of the room.
“Tools don’t make a craftsman. You grew with teachers. I had odds stacked high enough to bury me.”
His eyes lingered, weighing the words heavier than he wanted to admit. Then, leaned closer, voice a razor’s edge, “And yet… here we are. You, hiding in a neon cave. Me, finding you. Almost poetic.”
“Not poetic. Predictable.” You said flatly. “Curiosity was always going to drag you down here. You can’t stand the thought of someone you can’t buy, can’t bribe, can’t…outwit.”
The beat of silence was louder than the bass thundering around you. His grin faltered, but just for a breath. Enough to taste the truth he’d never say out loud…You were the only rival he’d ever had.
You tipped your head, studying him. “So? You didn’t crawl down here just to measure egos. What do you want, Boy?”
His smirk lingered, but his silence was louder than any answer. For a moment he almost looked human, stripped of the lacquer that usually made him untouchable.
“A ship tore itself apart over my land—
“Congratulations.” Your brows lifted. “You win the neighborhood lottery. Sell the scrap, buy yourself a bigger house.”
“What I found wasn’t just scrap.” His jaw tightened. “There were traces. Systems that don’t fit. Things that—”
Boy Kavalier cut himself off, lips thinning, like he’d already said too much. And you smiled, because you saw it. The crack. The arrogance trying to paper over the one thing he hated most; not knowing.
“You’re out of your depth.”
“Impossible.” His denial was instant, automatic. “I’ve decoded texts entire governments couldn’t touch. I’ve built patterns out of smoke. My brain doesn’t do out of depth.”
“Your brain’s been cushioned its whole life.” You shot back, leaning closer. “Fed books, theories, shiny institutions. You’re brilliant, sure. But brilliance doesn’t mean survival. Out there, in the wreckage? Survival’s what counts.”
His nostrils flared, as if the word survival was beneath him. But his eyes, stormy, restless, gave him away.
“You think I came here because I need you?” His voice was sharp, defensive, but it wavered on the edge of something raw. “No. I came because I want to see if you see it too. If you can.”
“You want me to play translator for a dead ship?”
You let the silence stretch, long enough that the music seemed to dim around it
“But you can’t even admit that’s what you’re asking.” You laughed.
That sly look returned, brittle, desperate to armor him. “I don’t ask. I test.”
“And if I pass?”
“Then maybe…” He hesitated, longer than he should have. He leaned in, arrogance and confession twisted into one. “…maybe I’m not the only one worth the title.”
Your smile didn’t reach your eyes. “So, what’s the test, then? You already admitted you can’t read the wreckage alone.”
“Alone is how I prefer it.” His eyes twitched as though you’d said something obscene Then, came something softer, almost begrudging. “But this isn’t… ordinary. The crash carved itself into my land. That makes it mine. And what I decide to do with it—mine, too.”
“And yet you’re here.” That landed.
“I’m offering you access. No one else gets through that fence without my say. You want to touch the wreckage, breathe it in, see if your instincts are worth the myths people whisper about you? Then you take it on my terms.”
The bass from the club rattled between you, but neither of you flinched.
You crossed your arms. “Your terms?”
“Yes.” He drew out the word like a knife unsheathed. “You come when I say. You keep what you see to yourself. And when we find answers, because we will, you remember whose land you’re standing on.”
You tilted your head, letting the neon catch in your eyes. “And if I say no?”
“Then you’ll spend the rest of your life wondering what I already know.”
“I don’t do contracts written on ego. My terms: you don’t pretend this is charity. You need me. That’s the only reason you’re here, right?” The laugh you gave him wasn’t kind. “You want me to keep your secrets, fine—I’ll keep them. But don’t think for a second you’re the only one with leverage.”
He studied you, something electric flickering behind his eyes, like a man teetering on the edge of admitting a truth he couldn’t stomach. Then, slow, he extended his hand.
“Deal.”
You didn’t take it. Not yet. Instead, you let the silence stretch until his confidence almost cracked. Then, finally, you clasped it, brief and firm.
The crowd around you swayed, the music kept pulsing, the night went on like nothing had changed, but you both knew better.
Something had shifted.
---
The lab was too quiet, too clean. Sterile white walls, light panels that hummed like a heartbeat you couldn’t escape.
No windows. No clocks.
The air tasted like filtered metal, the kind that stuck to your tongue. It was less a workplace and more a containment cell, a place where time wasn’t meant to pass, just collect. And Boy Kavalier moved through it like a warden.
There was no formal introduction to anything. Boy Kavalier showed you only what he wanted you to see. He curated fragment of information that spread on steel tables, glowing projections, clearly data already combed over and catalogued, like it was performing for you.
What he didn’t show, the sealed crates and rooms with blinking red locks, that were only for Kirsh and the Lost Boys, loomed louder than anything he put under the lights.
You should find this stimulating. He had told you, half smug, half rehearsed. As if stimulation was the same thing as freedom.
After giving the room a long look, you had met his gave. Feels more like a prison.
Prison implies punishment. This is privilege. He had bristled then, but the arrogance was armor; he wore it well and often.
To you privilege was just a prettier word for cage. The idea cemented as the metal found bore grooves that didn’t read like language so much as a pulse, rhythm. Alive. Almost.
The first time in the lab stretched long and shapeless. It was clear the only way to get results was to return, but that morphed into staying. You hadn’t asked and you weren’t told, but a room became yours and the lab was a second home.
The lab was colder after the bustle of bodies and neon, a silence that pressed in on your ribs. Time bled strange in there. There were white panels humming overhead, sterile air recycling until it made your skin itch. You hadn’t seen Boy Kavalier again since he’d ushered you through the door the first time, his smirk the last thing left in your memory before the steel hissed shut.
But you weren’t alone.
Faces moved through the space. There were technicians with tired eyes and sharper hands, assistants carrying tablets that glowed like false suns. None of them met your gaze for long. They had the look of people who knew not to touch the wrong thing, not to say the wrong word, and like they lived not in service of discovery, but under surveillance.
You caught the cameras early.
Little black eyes in the corners, tucked in sleek housings, blinking red on every other heartbeat. Every time you shifted toward the wreckage fragments, you felt the weight of them.
Not just recording but measuring. Judging. And you knew exactly who was behind them.
So, you played along. You brushed your fingertips over the alloy panels, traced the strange results, let your voice slip out just loud enough to carry.
“You treat people like data points.” You murmured, not bothering to look up. “You watch until they fit the pattern you want. Cameras instead of conversations.”
One of the assistants glanced up sharply, like you’d spoken a curse, then ducked back down, hands moving faster.
You smiled to yourself, keeping your eyes on the fragment. “Funny thing about patterns, though. Sometimes they look complete until you realize you’ve only cut out the piece that matters.”
There was no answer. Of course, there wouldn’t be. Boy Kavalier didn’t do confrontation when he could do control, but you knew he was listening.
Hours passed that way. Days even. You would ask questions no one would answer, tested the limits of what you’d be able to touch.
You watched how his people interacted, all the nervous glances they cast at the cameras before making a decision. All of it painted a picture: this lab wasn’t a hub of knowledge. It was a cage built to keep him in control of every variable, every breath.
By the time the clock, wherever it was, must’ve crawled past midnight, you leaned back in your chair, exhaustion pulling at your bones but something sharper keeping you awake.
“You’re watching, Boy.” You said finally, speaking into the sterile air like it was a confessional. “You always are. But watching isn’t the same as knowing. And sooner or later, you’ll figure out the difference.”
Silence answered you. But in the corner of your eye, one of the cameras tilted, ever so slightly. It was enough.
The nights blurred.
You learned the shuffle of footsteps overhead, the metallic rattle of a door three floors up, the static pop of radios echoing down the shaft of the building.
People passed by with their own kind of gravity: one humming tunelessly, another cracking his knuckles as if to remind the world he had bones to break. They all threw glances your way, measuring looks, curious tilts of the head.
You answered some with silence, others with a polite, half-raised brow that said you weren’t intimidated but weren’t careless either. It was enough to start threading yourself into the rhythm of this place, without showing too much.
The camera in the corners remained.
You felt it more than you saw it, a heat at the base of your neck, a third presence in the room. Some nights, you leaned back in your chair deliberately, stretching out longer than you needed to. Other nights, you stood and walked the room with slow, deliberate steps, tracing the walls as though mapping them. Always aware of the lens. Always aware of him.
By now you knew Boy Kavalier wasn’t a ghost, not really. He was the hum behind the wires, the flicker on the monitors, the silence at the end of a radio click, every instruction was due to his words.
You hadn’t seen him since your arrival, but his absence was a kind of presence in itself.
So, when one of the others, tall, wiry, with teeth too white for this dim place, tried a casual joke at your expense, you didn’t aim your reply at him. You tilted your voice, just enough for the mic hidden in the wall to catch it.
“Funny.” You started smooth and slow. “That you all walk around like you’re not on stage. Man behind the curtain has the best view. Doesn’t miss a thing.”
The wiry one only smirked, not catching the weight behind your words, but you knew the message was received where it needed to.
It wasn’t immediate. Boy Kavalier gave you another night, maybe two. Long enough for you to think he’d keep the distance. Long enough for you to get used to speaking to the air.
But then, you heard it before you saw him. It was the soft drag of bare feet across concrete, the cadence different from the others. Unhurried. Exact. A rhythm you hadn’t realized you’d recognized until it stirred something low in your chest.
You didn’t look up right away. Kept your eyes on the table, fingers drumming faintly against the metal. You felt him come closer in the way the air shifted, carrying the faintest trace of smoke and iron.
Finally, a voice. It was low and calm, with the kind of control that didn’t need to raise itself.
“You make a habit of talking to walls, or just mine?”
The first words from Boy Kavalier, not through a screen or a wire, but in the room with you.
And the strangest part was how ordinary they sounded. Like he was picking up a conversation you’d already been having for years.
You finally lifted your gaze.
He leaned in the doorway; hands tucked into the pockets of his jacket. His frame wasn’t imposing in the way some of the others were, but there was something sharpened about him, like a knife left too long in the dark, catching light when you least expected it. His eyes found yours easily, no fumbling, no hesitation.
You let your fingers still on the table. “Depends who’s listening.”
A faint twitch at the corner of his mouth, not quite a smile, not quite mockery. “And you figured I was?”
“You always are.” You leaned back in the chair, crossing your legs, posture casual but not careless. “That’s the whole trick of you, isn’t it? A voice without a body. The man behind the two-way mirror. Watcher of all, seen by none.”
His head tilted, as though he’d expected something else from you. As though your bluntness didn’t quite fit the script he’d written. He pushed off the doorway and stepped inside, the sound of his steps precise against the floor.
“Careful.” He teased softly. “Makes it sound like you’ve been thinking about me.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.” You kept your tone even, eyes tracking him as he moved closer. “I just don’t like being watched without the courtesy of conversation.”
He stopped a pace or two away, close enough that you could catch the scent of warmth on him, but not so close that you’d have to lean back. His stillness carried its own weight, the kind that made silence feel deliberate.
“You’ve been settling in.” He gestured faintly toward the others’ lingering glances, the unspoken order that had already started to take shape around you. The trickled out one by one. “Quicker than most.”
“That bother you?”
“Not yet.”
“So, this is the part where you throw me out?” You arched a brow, challenging. “Or are you just checking if I spook?”
Another almost-smile. He shook his head once. “If you were going to spook, you already would’ve.”
“You’ve been watching me that close?” That earned the faintest twitch of your own lips, though you buried it quickly
His gaze sharpened making a silence stretch, taut as wire. Then, he tapped on one of the diagrams.
“You’re circling the same dead-end I circled two nights ago. Only—” He raised a finger dramatically, wagging it in mock warning. “I had the sense to abandon it before I wasted my time.”
Boy Kavalier’s delivery was all arrogance, but there was something almost childlike in it too, like he couldn’t resist the thrill of pointing out a flaw or of performing knowledge.
“You mean before you realized you couldn’t crack it.” You watched him with a flat expression. That got a flicker.
He faltered, just a breath, before he leaned on the table with both palms, looming slightly but not enough to intimidate. Enough to test.
“I know when something won’t yield. You just keep digging till your nails break.” He lowered his voice conspiratorially.
You met his gaze, steady. “At least I’m not afraid of a challenge.”
That pulled a laugh out of him. It was something bright, careless, bouncing off the sterile walls like it didn’t belong there at all. He ran a hand through his hair, pacing a step, then turning back with that same infuriating glint in his eyes.
“You really think that’s a strength, don’t you?” He asked. “That you can scrap your way through things I’ve been born to untangle?”
“I don’t think.” You leaned back in your chair, cool. “I know.”
You regretted your admission. He looked at you like you’d just confirmed everything he suspected about you. It was just you and him now, no buffer of workers or wall between you. You half-expected him to leave, just as breezily as he’d arrived. Yet, he lingered.
Boy Kavalier found a chair, lounged in it like gravity bent differently for him, eyes flicking over your scrawled notes, then back to you. That grin always hovered on his mouth, but it had lost a little of its blade and shifted into something mischievous, softened. Curious.
“You’ve been at it a while.” He said suddenly.
“And?”
“You’re boring.”
You blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Boring.” He pushed off the chair, sauntering closer, hands moving like he was sculpting the word in the air. “All this discipline, all this—” He mimed scribbling furiously. “—head down, chew through numbers, grind until your spine gives out. You’re exactly like the rest of them.”
You set your pen down deliberately. “The rest of who?”
“Scientists. Scholars. The faithful little monks of breakthrough.” His grin sharpened. “Always flogging yourselves for the promise of a revelation. It’s so… predictable.”
He fed you your own words. You tilted your head, studying him.
“I get accused of many things. But boring? Never.” He continued, spreading his arms in mock innocence.
“So, this is what you do? Pop in, mock the people actually doing the work, and vanish again?” Your lips twitched, but you kept your face even.
“No. This is what I do—spot the lies people tell themselves. And you, of all people, with your dirty little shortcuts, your cheating world—you should be the last one shackling yourself to rules.”
That cut closer than you expected. You sat back slowly, the edge of surprise hidden beneath. He’d been watching more than you thought.
But his own words seemed to snag him too. For a flicker, something thoughtful threaded through his arrogance. He was supposed to find you corrupted, slippery, like the world you crawled out of. Instead, you were transparent. Direct. Almost painfully so.
It unnerved him more than he’d admit.
“You’re disciplined.” He covered anything he’d let you see, voice lighter now, teasing. “Rigid. Dull. And I won’t stand for it.”
“Won’t stand for it?”
“Nope.” He straightened, a boy-king issuing decree. “Which means we’re doing something fun.”
“Fun.” You said it like the word was foreign.
“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten what that is.” His grin widened. “Come on. Enough numbers. Enough posture. I want to show you something.”
You eyed him, wary. “What exactly?”
But he was already moving toward the door, a hand flicking in a gesture that was half-command, half-invitation.
“Not here.” He glanced back with a glint in his eye. “Somewhere the cameras don’t always see. Unless, of course, you’d rather stay here and be… boring.”
The door slid open with a hiss, spilling corridor light across the sterile lab. He didn’t wait for your answer. Because he already knew you’d follow.
The hallways felt different at night. Quieter, yes, but not peaceful. Again, silence here was alive, humming with the secret machinery of the place. Boy Kavalier walked ahead of you, his stride cocky and unhurried, every turn and swipe of his keycard done with the dramatic flair of a magician revealing a trick.
He didn’t speak until the last door opened. The hiss of pressurized air, then the faint wash of pale blue light.
Inside: glass enclosures, reinforced walls, the shimmer of containment fields. You recognized Kirsh immediately, hunched over a console, eyes not bothering to find you.
And beyond him, the shadows moved. Shapes that weren’t human, pacing, crouching, testing their invisible borders. The creatures. The eggs. The things that weren’t meant to be here.
Boy Kavalier turned, waiting for the expression on your face. He looked for anticipation, awe, maybe even fear. His smile already playing at the corners of his mouth.
“Fun.” He declared, sweeping a hand toward the scene. “The rarest things on Earth—alive. My Lost Boys and now my kingdom.”
You stepped forward, gaze hard on the creatures behind the glass. Their sleek bodies, the inhuman grace of them. And then you looked back at him.
“This is fun?”
“Don’t tell me you’re unimpressed.”
“I’m not impressed or unimpressed.” You said evenly. “I’m thinking…that you’ve mistaken hiding something coveted for what it means to actually feel alive.”
“And what would you know about that?” He tilted his head, eyes narrowing, as if weighing whether you’d just insulted him.
“Enough.” You stepped closer, lowering your voice, letting the thrum of the enclosures fill the pause. “Fun isn’t hoarding the unknown, keeping it locked behind glass. Fun is known. It’s presence. It’s sitting in the noise, the chaos, the heat of other people’s bodies and knowing you’re apart of it. You’ve forgotten that.”
For the first time since you’d met him, Boy Kavalier didn’t look like the smartest man in the room. He looked… caught.
“You think you can just lecture me on what I’ve forgotten?” His laugh was sharp, but brittle underneath. “You—of all people? You grew up in the mud, clawing through scraps. You think I need your definition of fun?”
“Yes.” You didn’t flinch. “Because you’ve been so busy proving you’re untouchable, you forgot what it means to touch anything real.”
The words hung between you. His arrogance, your defiance, and the creatures shifting restlessly in their cages.