Page 64 of The Evening Wolves

He nodded again. And then, reluctantly, he added, “Better than me.”

North snorted. “That’s because you’re a cop.”

“Excuse me?” Emery asked.

“North probably forgot you used to be a cop too,” Shaw said.

“Yeah, that was it. I forgot.” He plucked the phone from Jem and gave it a closer examination. Finally, he grunted. “It could be him.”

“Let me look.”

“What are you going to see? You were buried under flaming rubble.”

“Oh, North, that could be the title of our sex tape!”

“Sounds appropriate,” Emery muttered. He took back his phone and considered the man on the screen. “This is the guy who gave all of you so much trouble?”

“Fuck off,” North said.

Theo said, “Really, Emery?”

Auggie booed.

“I would have been fine if I’d had a gun,” Jem said.

“Obviously,” Emery said. “Anyone would have been fine if they’d had a gun.”

“Yeah?” North said. “You try facing down a maniac with a scythe and see how calm and collected you are?”

“It wasn’t a scythe.”

“I was there. I think I know a fucking scythe when I see one.”

“Apparently you don’t, since a scythe, by its design, has a handle anywhere from four to five and a half feet long.”

“Oh!” Shaw said. “Cheese curds!”

John-Henry opened his mouth to ask what he meant—or, more likely, to ask him to be quiet—but this time, Shaw wasn’t hallucinating or tripping or under the influence of any kind of psychedelic, because at that moment the waitress set a basket of cheese curds on the table. North dragged them toward him, shielding them with one arm and giving Jem, of all people, a dirty look. Once everyone had their food and drinks, the waitress retreated again, and everyone began to eat.

John-Henry discovered he had ordered a burger—he barely even remembered looking at the menu, and he didn’t feel particularly hungry. He took a bite, though, and was instantly ravenous. The burger was juicy, the cheese sharp and perfectly melted, and some genius had buttered and toasted the bun. He forced himself to slow down when he realized he’d already pounded half the burger, and he grabbed a napkin to clean his face and hands.

“The point,” he said after a drink of Pepsi, “is this guy is dangerous, whoever he is. North’s not wrong; I know how to handle myself well enough, but this guy’s in another league.”

“He’s not just in another league,” Jem said in a subdued voice. “He’s unreal. It’s like he lives for this stuff. I swear to God, he enjoyed it.”

North paused with a cheese curd halfway to his mouth, made a face, and nodded.

“And fearless,” Theo said. He sounded thoughtful. “He didn’t hesitate, didn’t slow down. Part of that is training. But part of that is being totally uninhibited. It’s an advantage.”

What he didn’t say was what John-Henry was thinking: an advantage the rest of them didn’t have, because they had people they loved, people depending on them, and having something to lose meant a reason to be afraid.

“It’s an advantage until it isn’t,” Emery said. “He’s already gotten overconfident. He wasn’t wearing his cat-burglar getup tonight, was he? And John saw him and lived to tell about it.”

“Because I ran away. Let’s be real about that.”

“Jem and I couldn’t take him down together,” Theo said. “John-Henry, he was winning until Tean saved us.”

Tean blushed and bent his head over his food.

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