Page 39 of Make Them Bleed
My thighs protest the pace. The coffee in my hand sloshes. I refuse to waste cinnamon.
Arrow’s first stop is the bodega on the corner, the one with the faded mural of a blue heron and Raúl who gives me free gum when I cry. I pause outside the fruit stand and pretend to examine avocados with the gravitas of a surgeon. Through the glass, I watch Arrow toss three packs of mint gum on the counter.
My eyebrows climb into my hairline. Bodega Raúl tilts his head at the loot. Arrow says something that makes him laugh, then slides a protein bar into the pile and pays cash. Cash. Who uses cash? Vigilantes and people avoiding paper trails, that’s who.
I bag an avocado I don’t need (sorry, budget) and step aside as Arrow re-emerges, tucking the gum into his backpack like contraband. He heads south, easy stride, like a man with nothing to hide. I trail him past the nail salon that plays telenovellas on loop and the psychic who told me I’d meet a tall dark stranger (check) and the church whose marquee saysGOD KNOWS YOUR SEARCH HISTORY.Cool, cool, noted, God.
He ducks into the hardware store next—Hancock’s, all creaky floorboards and two aisles of a thousand solutions to problems you didn’t know you had. I linger at the window displayof Halloween decorated tools and sneak a peek. He grabs a headlamp, two small padlocks, and a box of contractor-grade trash bags. The cashier is new—pink hair, septum ring, bored. Arrow walks out with red tape and zip ties.
“Subtle,” I mutter into my cup.
He cuts across to Ink & Paper, the tiny art supply store that lives between a tattoo parlor and a vegan donut shop like a Swiss diplomat. I let three middle-schoolers with slime kits thunder past and drift in, keeping a safe distance. Arrow is at the register with… a hunk of red cotton twine, a fistful of neon sticky notes, and a pack of Sharpies.
“Intel Narnia,” I whisper, equal parts wonder and rage. He signs the receipt with his left hand and my brain supplies a slideshow—left-handed loops on Post-its, left-handed smudges on keyboards, the left-handed reach for chopsticks that slid sweet-and-sour off my wrist.
He tosses me a glance. For a half-second, his gaze skims the back aisle where I’m pretending to admire sketchbooks. I go statue-still. He looks away, smooth and unhurried. Either he doesn’t see me or he sees me and chooses not to see me.
My heart drums in my throat. It’s fine. This is fine. I’m a cool, collected detective with an avocado in her bag and cinnamon on her tongue and the truth winking at me like a lighthouse.
He leaves; I count to thirty, buy a pencil I don’t need, and follow.
We pass a dog in a sweater. We pass a busker singing Leonard Cohen off-key. Arrow jaywalks without looking ridiculous, which should be illegal and is probably part of his hacker skill tree. He cuts down Riverside, past the shuttered print shop with the faded sign and the side door with the keypad lock.
He checks the street—left, right, up. I flatten myself against a mural of octopus tentacles wearing a crown. He enters a code I cannot see (but my blood shouts1948like it’s a winning lottery number), slips inside, and the door wheezes shut.
I take a long, slow breath. The river smells like cold pennies and wet rope. A gull screams like a hinge. I stand there with my ridiculous avocado and my cinnamon and my heart pinging off my ribs and know that some days the universe does you the obscene courtesy of confirming your worst suspicion and your best hope in the same breath.
He’s Hoover.
He’s been Hoover all along.
My emotions pile up, then bottleneck. Relief slams grief, which rear-ends fury, which cuts off desire, which honks at betrayal, which flips a U-turn into something suspiciously like giddiness. The traffic jam makes me dizzy.
With Arrow being Hoover, that means his ‘team’ has to be his closest friends, and roommate. Gage, Render, Ozzy, and Knight. I’ve known Gage, Render, and Knight since high school, and only met Ozzy once or twice through Arrow.
Grrr. Did he think I wouldn’t find out?
I find the buzzer on the side door. My finger hovers. I could press. I could walk up those industrial stairs, push open the door, and sayyou idiot, you beautiful idiot, how dare you and thank you and take that mask off or I’ll rip it off with my teeth.I could watch his face crumple and rebuild in real time. I could lay it all in the open.
Or.
Or I could have a little fun.
Because here’s the thing: I’m hurt. I’m also thrilled. And under both, I’m me—Juno Kate, a girl who used to prank her sister by swapping the sugar with salt before brand shoots and live-tweet the chaos like a tiny goblin. If Arrow thinks he can hide the entire Hoover operation behind a rubber face and a voice changer, then he underestimates the lengths to which I will go to make a man sweat.
I step back from the door and check my phone. A text sits there, unread from ten minutes ago:
HOOVER: Running late. Ten minutes.
From where I’m standing, I can see the shadow of him pacing past the second-story window, a shape in motion, waiting for me.
I type, thumbs flying:
Copy. On my way. Hope you’re ready, Ghost. I have questions.
I hit send, then take the long way around the block to the front entrance, because dramatics matter. My pulse steadies into something like a plan. I tuck the avocado deeper into my bag—it seems rude to interrogate your vigilante while holding produce—and fix my hair in the warped reflection of the glass.
Up the metal stairs, past the peeling “RIVERSIDE PRINT” letters, down the corridor that smells like ink and old paper. I pause outside the loft door—the one I’ve entered half a dozen times now, the one with the keypad code that meanswe builtsomething together I didn’t know was ours.I don’t knock. I wait.
