Almost.
Almost enough.
Solan’s fingertips flattened against the cold rim of concrete. He could feel it down there—he was almost certain of it—the smooth curve of his phone’s casing, wedged somewhere in the dark like a quiet insult.
Just a little farther. He stretched another inch. Not enough.
The drain was deeper than it looked. Narrower, too. Half his forearm had disappeared into the slit. His shoulder pressed against the rough edge, skin grinding faintly with each adjustment. The angle was wrong. The leverage worse. He felt like he was wrestling the ground itself—and losing.
He paused, staring into the narrow black. He could just tear it out. The thought was clean. The kind of clean that meant he was already past tired. *The ring began to warm again.
He wasn’t supposed to be here. He was supposed to still be in the car.
Matt’s rented stretch limo had sat outside the club gleaming like a temporary passport. When the door opened, the inside felt detached from the rest of the city—low lights, layered perfume, alcohol suspended in warm air, bass reverberating through leather seats. A room that didn’t require explanation.
Matt had been buying bottles all night.
“Bottle service. Yeah. Just bring whatever’s expensive.”
He hadn’t glanced at the menu. He’d been scanning the crowd instead, relaxed but alert, as if surveying territory that might one day belong to him. A few people had come over to shake his hand. Solan never quite caught why.
Later, Matt set his sights on a woman in the VIP section. Long blond hair. The kind of composure that suggested she had long ago grown used to being observed. Not loud. Not theatrical. Just certain.
Matt switched tables without hesitation.
He went over.
Then came back alone. The refusal had been clean. Efficient.
“You know you’re being judged, right?” Solan had said, leaning against a pillar while Matt returned with his drink.
“Only if I care,” Matt replied, smiling as if nothing at all had shifted.
Then he ordered another round.
They eventually packed into the limo.
Too many people. Too much warmth. Matt sat at the center, one arm resting casually over a girl’s shoulder as if the space had been reserved for him since birth. Solan ended up near the door, half pressed against the frame. Cold air seeped through the seal in a thin draft, collecting at his shoulder.
Matt directed the driver stop by stop.
“Next stop—yeah, drop her first.”
The car never really stilled. Someone laughed. Someone shouted. Music leaked faintly from someone’s phone. The interior was in constant minor motion—sound, temperature, bodies shifting.
Solan leaned back against the door and watched streetlights blur past the tinted window. Alcohol stretched each light into a faint smear.
At one stop, the door opened.
He stepped out to make space. A girl in heels squeezed past him. He shifted automatically, stepping backward into the night air. The cold hit him fast enough to make him blink.
He didn’t feel his pocket lighten.
The phone slipped free. Hit the pavement softly. A small, almost polite sound. Like something that didn’t intend to be noticed.
He bent to look for it.
Couldn’t find it.
He was almost certain it had slid into the drain—the black slit in the pavement that existed solely to consume keys and phones and any object small enough to matter.
By the time he straightened—
The taillights were already receding.
Shrinking.
Then turning the corner.
“…I wasn’t back in yet.”
No one heard him.
He glanced around. It was close to Academy territory—just not a part he usually came to. His dorm was probably a twenty-minute walk away.
Now he was still crouched there. The whole night before it—lights, bass, alcohol, Matt’s infuriating grin—felt like a fragment from someone else’s life, edited clumsily into his own memory.
The ring was still on his finger. He could feel its heat—subtle, coiled, waiting. If he wanted to, he could crack the metal, shatter the concrete like it had insulted him personally. He had that option. That was the part that made the thought so clean.
It slid into place with a kind of dangerous logic. Almost reasonable.
His stomach tightened again. The alcohol hadn’t settled—ice, sugar, whatever cheap sweetness he’d swallowed earlier—all of it turning sour and restless beneath his ribs.
Someone walked past him, laughing too loudly. Another voice answered. The sound scraped. For a second, he wanted the entire world to go silent.
His hand tightened. The ring bit. Metal groaned faintly under pressure. Concrete powdered at the edges, fine dust loosening.
“What are you doing?”
The voice came from behind him.
His entire body froze. “Recycling,” he said automatically, too quickly.
Perfect. Civic-minded citizen. Late-night environmental responsibility.
He almost congratulated himself.
Then—
The voice. Too familiar.
He yanked his arm free. Too fast. His elbow struck the metal edge hard enough to sting. When he stood, his balance shifted; he nearly stepped backward into empty air.
He turned.
Clara stood a few steps away. She hadn’t moved closer. Hadn’t stepped back. Just stopped there, as if arriving and remaining required no explanation.
For a fleeting second, he was relieved he hadn’t already made it worse, hadn’t let the night split open around him.
And at the same time—almost against his will—there was a quieter, uglier thought: he wished she hadn’t been here. If she hadn’t seen him, he could have let it happen. Could have broken something.
He swallowed. What the hell are you thinking, Solan Elric.
“I—” He stopped. Restarted. “Thought I heard a cat.”
Even to his own ears, it was thin. Midnight. Drain. Cat. A first-year writing assignment would reject it.
“Could be drakespawn,” she said.
Her tone made it impossible to tell whether she was serious or simply accepting his script.
“Not impossible,” he replied quickly, as if salvaging something fragile.
Her gaze dropped briefly to the black slit in the pavement. Then returned to his face.
“Why not use a flashlight?”
“My phone,” he said. “Might’ve fallen.”
Clara nodded once. Didn’t press. She held out her phone.
“Call it.”
He took it and dialed his number. Silence.
He stared at the drain for a second before realizing.
Muted. Of course.
“What?” she asked.
“Probably on vibrate.”
She took the phone back, tapped through something, then handed it to him again.
“Here,” she said, pointing at the screen. “Log in. Share location. It’ll override.”
He looked at the screen.
He had never shared his location with anyone. Or maybe he had simply never considered giving them away.
“Oh,” he said.
He began entering his credentials. His fingers were slower than usual. Not from the alcohol. That had mostly burned off in the cold air.
He was handing over his position. Not as a favor. Not under pressure. Just because this was how the moment unfolded.
He finished logging in and passed the phone back.
Clara didn’t look at him. She tapped once. Confirmed.
A few seconds later—
Two steps away, beneath a parked car, something buzzed. Soft. Insistent. Like an insect forced into the open.
“Doesn’t sound like the drain,” she said.
“Yeah.”
He walked over and crouched again. Looked under the car.
The phone lay near the inside edge of the tire, black casing blending almost perfectly with rubber and shadow.
It had been there the whole time. He stared at it for a second.
All that reaching. All that negotiation with the pavement. Built on the wrong assumption.
He reached under and pulled it out.
Dust on the screen. Nothing broken.
He stood up. For a moment, he didn’t know what to say.
The night wind moved down the street, cooler now.
She hadn’t stepped away. Hadn’t asked for explanation. “You want something to eat?”
He blinked. “What?”
“Northside Counter closes in thirty minutes, we still have time,” Clara said, tone even. Not an invitation. Not a suggestion. Just information. Professors went there. Grad students. Security guards. Anyone drifting out of the library or a bar too late to pretend they had somewhere better to be.
He glanced at his phone. The location-sharing icon was still glowing at the top of the screen.
His thumb hovered over it. Then lowered. “Oh,” he said. “Sure.”
Clara started down the street. Solan followed a step behind, his pace just slightly quicker than usual—as if he could grind the restless knot in his stomach into the pavement with each step.
The street felt almost exaggeratedly empty. A car passed in the distance, its sound subdued, as if careful not to disturb the hour. The neon sign outside Northside Counter flickered—half lit, half failing—casting a practical kind of warmth. The door stood open. Yellow light spilled out, along with the smell of oil and sugar. Cheap and steady.
The knot under his ribs loosened the moment he stepped into the spill of yellow light. Oil and sugar—cheap, steady—hit his system like a switch. The pain didn’t taper. It stopped.
Clara ordered first.
He stood behind her, staring at the menu board. Fried things. Burgers. Hot dogs. Soft-serve. Nothing that needed explanation.
When it was his turn, he looked once at the chalkboard, then at the faint smear of grime still on his knuckles.
“Hot fudge sundae.”
Outside, Clara carried a paper tray of fried asparagus. The edges were already translucent with oil.
There was a wooden bench against the wall. They sat with a measured space between them. The paper tray rested in the middle.
His first spoonful met resistance; the ice cream still firm. The fudge bled slowly downward, heavy and unapologetically sweet.
Clara squeezed lemon over the asparagus with deliberate care. She bit into one. Crisp outside. Soft within.
After a while, she glanced at his bowl.
“Can I try?”
He hesitated only a fraction, then handed her the spoon.
She took a small bite.
“A bit too sweet,” she said.
Not criticism. Just observation.
She returned the spoon. Then slid one asparagus spear toward him.
He took it without comment. They didn’t talk.
Oil crackled faintly inside the shop. The neon light flickered once, then steadied. The night air softened the edges of the melting ice cream until it pooled quietly at the bottom of the cup.
The tray emptied.
The sundae collapsed in on itself.
Clara finished the last piece, wiped her fingers on a napkin. Solan set the spoon down.
The location icon stayed lit. He watched it like a bruise you stop flinching from.