POV: Leon

  I pulled my smartphone out of my pocket and, barely hitting the letters with my fingers due to the residual adrenaline, quickly typed a message:

  "Are you alive over there?!"

  The answer came three endless minutes later:

  "Alive and kicking. Meet me at the exit."

  I put the phone away and slowly trudged to the designated spot, hiding my nose in the collar of my jacket. Thoughts swarmed in my head like agitated bees. Arkgrim... Who is he really?

  I replayed his movements in my memory over and over again. Such reaction time, such speed—it's not just good physical conditioning. Even Corps cadets don't show such results after a year of exhausting training without stimulants or active armor. And he is an ordinary (or not so much) teenager in a thin windbreaker.

  But something else frightened me. Arkgrim is the only person who didn't just block my mind-reading, but actually felt it. That crash against the "concrete wall" in his head still echoed with a dull ache in my temples. Next to him, I felt unarmed. My gift, which had always given me an advantage, was useless here. I was afraid to activate my telepathy unnecessarily when he was around—what if he perceived it as aggression?

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  'This is all too weird,' I thought, stepping around a puddle with an icy crust. 'But can you say he's dangerous? Doesn't seem like it... arrogant, a bit wild, obsessed with food and sleep, but not evil. An ordinary guy with a bunch of secrets that he apparently doesn't even remember himself.'

  Suddenly, someone gave my shoulder a palpable slap. I flinched, almost jumping in the air.

  "Leon, what are you thinking so hard about?" Arkgrim stood nearby, as if nothing had happened. No shortness of breath, no messy hair, only his black eyes gleaming with a cheerful spark. "Already came up with a tactic for the next run? I promise, next time I'll pick girls without hidden bio-suits under their clothes."

  I exhaled, trying to calm my wildly beating heart.

  "No," I grumbled, trying to look unbothered. "Just about my own stuff. I was thinking how we're going to explain things to the police if that Rabuki decides to track us down after all."

  "Oh, just forget it!" Arkgrim waved his hand dismissively and marched briskly toward the subway. "She has too many things to do: autographs, training, buying new shopping bags... She has no time for us. Let's go find where they sell the biggest burgers around here instead. You have to eat your stress away, Leon!"

  I looked at his back. He was skipping along, humming some silly tune, and at that moment he seemed like an ordinary fourteen-year-old boy again. But the feeling that I was walking next to an unexploded shell hadn't gone anywhere. It just hid a little deeper, waiting for its time.