I nod at the kid making my coffee. I had given him my name and something about special directions.

  It’s morning, so the bodega’s actually busy. Someone bumps me as they walk sidestep past the staircase trapdoor, hands up.

  The kid working here is new. Can’t be a day over 15. Probably one or more labor laws being violated. He passes my coffee to the clerk working the register, who’s leaning over the counter. “You!” he yells at two teenagers squabbling over something or other. “Not here! Go!” Goddamn it. I just want to get my “thing” and go.

  Well, and my coffee. Going to need all the caffeine today. Again.

  The clerk, an older guy, finally rings me up. Once I’m outside, I feel underneath the cup to find a piece of paper folded up and taped to the bottom. I walk down the block, nodding at an old woman pushing a cart. She scowls back at me.

  Once there’s nobody around, I unfold the paper and scan it quickly.

  I don’t dare search online about myself, not even through a VPN. I might see what comes up naturally on my social media feeds but I never, ever click. Cannot leave even the faintest digital trail.

  Rojas did, and according to his note, found… nothing. No rumors connecting the “Flying Man of New York” with the Russian, no anonymous whispers on social media, no sightings of anything flying away from him as he hurtled to his doom.

  And the wife apparently isn’t talking to the authorities at all. Hardly a surprise, if everyone thinks it was a hit put out by her government.

  It ends with the “directions.” Another project. Another spraypainted logo at a rather difficult to reach location. Well, it gives me extra beer money, and keeps me busy. I study it, memorize it before stuffing the note in my pocket, planning on shredding it at the office.

  #

  “Nick! You guys got housed yesterday,” Carter says, patting my back. It’s Saturday night. I have to remember to pace myself, my alcohol intake this week approaching concerning levels… but I was doing anything to get the doomed screams out of my head.

  And it’s sort of true: The Mariners slipped past us by one run somehow. I wouldn’t call it getting “housed,” though. “Division’s locked in if we win just four more, or the Orioles shit the bed, either way. How’s Jarae?”

  We sit down. “Can’t complain. But she does!” He always tells the same crappy jokes about his girlfriend. He’s big, already balding at 26, likes to wear sunglasses at night. Total douche, and guilty of insider playing.

  Kelly appears. We all try to always tip her well. “Usual, Carter?” He nods.

  “And guess my tab will be separate. That pilsner…” I trail off as Kelly turns to make Carter’s old fashioned.

  The Russian’s really out of the news, and Rojas found no speculation that his death had anything to do with the “Flying Man.”

  Did I really get away with murder?

  Was it murder?

  “On second thought, make it a gin and tonic.”

  Soon, Angel shows up, sitting to Walter’s right, apologizing about always getting out late from his law firm before gesturing vertically with his hands and regaling us with some story of how he supposedly ran into Adam Schefter the NFL reporter on a sidewalk somewhere, and amazed him with his talk of how it’s actually the Jets’ interior linebackers who are the key of their lockdown pass coverage. Angel’s always so full of shit, it’s more likely his Doordash driver had been named Adam, but I nod gamely along. Angel’s a football obsessive, one of these guys who can tell you off the top of his head the leading rusher for a random Packers game played in 1993.

  “Buddy, you mind?” I hear to my left.

  I turn. Some white guy, older, maybe late 30s, wiry, scowling at me.

  “Can I help you, friend?” I ask immediately.

  “You’re in my space, don’t you think?” His girlfriend glowers at me to his left. Hispanic, average looks, way younger than him. I feel my nostrils clear as I lose the first relaxed state I’ve felt since the Russian.

  Getting a run of bad luck with angry assholes lately.

  “Friend, I’ve been sitting in this one spot since before you got here.” I can’t even remember this guy sitting down.

  “And I know being called ‘friend’ is the least friendly thing there is.”

  “Good observation.” He’s wearing one of those caps that British people wear, but he has no accent. I wonder if I’ll be knocking it off his head as I tense.

  His lip curls. “Best be careful what you’re looking at… friend.” Something about his voice has me more than a little alarmed.

  “Hey!” Carter yells, turning away from Angel’s bullshit story. “Is there a problem?”

  “Bro here says I’m invading his personal space.”

  The wiry guy puts his hands up. “Sorry, gentlemen. My bad. Realize I’m the one soaring past boundaries. My nerves, see. Lemme buy a round.”

  “Well… ok…” I mumble, wondering darkly what this guy’s problem is. Foray’s is not really the kind of place where people routinely take their issues outside, especially as it’s not even 11.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Just took a flyer on a prop bet that basically vanished into thin air and put me in a foul mood. Name’s Ian. What’ll it be?”

  “Ian, huh?” I reply suspiciously. “Another gin and tonic for me.” No Rachel around tonight to disapprove of my liquor intake.

  I’m hearing about this guy’s job as a process server as he talks with his hands, the way Angel does but more annoying.

  “So I’m flying around the block, trying to find this goddamn building,” he’s saying, setting his beer down before making a chopping motion. “Draft’s really picked up, and I’m starting to get chilly in the cool air. I’m not wanting to give a flying fuck at this point, but I have a job.” I nod politely, wondering where this boring story is going.

  “But it’s not! Everything’s up in the air with this case,” he’s saying. “Oh, I work out of a firm, I’m not contract, so I hear about these things as they’re precipitating. Anyway, I finally find this goddamn place and I’m at their front door, my nerves fluttering. Going through my quick mental checklist, like an airline pilot, you know?”

  Okay…

  “My mind starts to wander, lost in the clouds. Like I’m high, but I’m not, never on the job. Next thing I know, someone just rips the goddamn door open,” he says, almost more with his hands than his mouth. “This squat, chubby bird is just flying past me like an airborne missile, nearly knocking me over!”

  Something’s not right here…

  “Now, I’ve got me a wingspan,” he’s saying, which is true with the way he waves his arms around. “But this bird almost lifted me in the air like there’s no gravity. So I’m trying to collect myself before the whole case goes up in smoke, the flight of fancy of knocking her down fluttering away just as rapidly as I thought it…”

  This is no coincidence.

  I grip my drink tight.

  I’ve been made.

  As he continues his almost certainly made-up story, I begin to very carefully consider my options.

  This guy somehow fucking knows, and he’s tracked me down. And now he’s toying with me, letting me know he knows.

  Rojas? No. No fucking way. He would never spill, and even if he did it wouldn’t be to a asshat like this.

  The Russians? The wife would’ve told them the “assassin” fell to his death too… except they only found one body.

  Shit.

  I’d been careful. For twelve years, I’d been careful. Maybe not careful enough, but I’d been careful with my flying. Avoiding the day when I’d be exposed. For twelve years, I’d been careful enough to avoid that day.

  That day has now arrived.

  “I, uh…” I begin, my throat suddenly dry. I’m taller than him, and he’s older, but he’s wiry, sinewy as fuck, like he trains. “I… think I need to step out for a smoke.” I don’t smoke.

  “Sure, mate!” he yells over the bar noise. “Me too, let’s go! Hey, have your mates watch our spots!”

  Mates? I’m gesturing to Carter that I’ll be right back. Why does he keep using that word? Is he an FSB agent who learned UK English? He doesn’t even have an accent.

  Instead of outside, I head to the bathroom downstairs. I twist down the narrow stairwell, flattening myself to one side as two girls run past up the other way, laughing. I’m in the low-ceilinged, claustrophobic basement before I push into the oddly wide single-stall men’s room, Ian, or whatever his name is, right behind me. There’s nobody else in here.

  “Smoking in the boy’s room?” he asks pleasantly. “Like the old song? Mate, I—”

  As soon as the door closes, I have Ian slammed against the wall next to the hand dryer, my forearm under his chin. “Friend, whatever it is you think you know about me, you’re going to forget it or I’ll fucking end you.”

  A click behind me as something hard is shoved between my ribs. “No you won’t,” a female voice says.

  I slowly raise my hands. I could’ve sworn it was empty. “Guys, let’s be cool.”

  “Oh, I was,” Ian replies good-naturedly. “And then you got all goofy on me. Elena?”

  His girlfriend suddenly appears at his side out of nowhere. Like, literally out of nowhere. My hands still up, I step back, startled. Elena is holding a lipstick case. She opens it, turns to the mirror.

  “What the hell?” I lower my hands.

  “Yeah,” Ian begins as his girlfriend dabs at her lips. “You’re not the only one with interesting ways of getting around, mate.”

  Elena blurs in my vision before she’s suddenly holding my wallet in her other hand, hefting it up triumphantly. I know it’s mine because of the Arctic Monkeys waveform logo on it.

  “What the hell?!” I repeat, only a lot more urgently.

  “Like that?” she asks, her voice high-pitched yet throaty. She starts rifling through my wallet.

  “Is that it? All this just to… you’re here just to rob me?” Ian smirks. I’m still grappling with the far, far bigger news here than my wallet getting dipped.

  “Wait. Elena… how’d you do that? You run super fast?!”

  There’s no denying it. Even if this girl is just a common mugger… she has abilities that can’t be explained by physics, let alone human biology.

  Holy shit. I’m not alone.

  I’m not alone!

  “No, I don’t ‘run super fast,’” she says, annoyed, as if it should be super obvious. “It’s a bit more complicated. And you really think we tracked you down just to rob you? Madre dias.” She has my ID out. “Nicolas Hannovich. Date of birth means he’s, uh, 28, right? Or is it 27?”

  “28,” I tell her. “That’s kind of rude to be rifling through my shit, you know.”

  “6’0, supposedly,” she says, glancing up at me. “But I hear all guys on the dating apps say that.” She blurs again before she’s back at Ian’s side without my wallet, which I feel in my back pocket.

  Still not convinced they aren’t here to kill me. “So what do you really do, Ian?”

  “I’m a process server,” he’s saying. “I’m not making that up. And I don’t have any fancy tricks up my sleeve like you two do. But... ah, I sort of know how to recognize you lot.”

  “Right…” I tell him as there’s a knock on the door. “Hold on!” I yell. “So, uh, I’m in marketing. How about your girlfriend here?”

  I’m buying time, trying to figure out what the hell is going on here. She says she’s not a super-fast runner like The Flash. Is she teleporting, then? I don’t know what exactly this girl can do, but she clearly means I’m not all alone in the world. I feel… excited? Scared?

  “I’m not his girlfriend,” she shoots back.

  “She’s not,” Ian affirms. “She’s just the first person I found who’s, well, you know. I’m trying to catch you all.”

  “First person you found,” I repeat, frowning. “Wait. What?”

  More pounding on the door. “I said hold on!” I yell.

  “Maybe we can continue this conversation somewhere else, yeah?” Ian says. “And I was seriously running out of flight-related things to throw into my story back there.”

  “I don’t think so—”

  “Ah, isn’t it fortuitous that we found him before the Russians did, Elena?”

  I freeze. Well… damn it.

  “Fortuitous is not the exact word I’d choose,” Elena glowers.

  “Aye, let’s go Nick. Bringing you in sooner than we’d prefer due to your, ah, antics, such as they are.”

  Bringing me in?

  This is really it.

  And here we go.