A heavy silence reigned in the car's cabin, broken only by the hum of the engine. Rabuki sat opposite me, and her gaze was literally burning a hole in me. She looked as if she was ready to turn me into mincemeat right then and there if she didn't get answers.

  "WHAT WAS THAT?! WHO ARE THOSE PEOPLE?! EXPLAIN QUICKLY!" she broke into a yell, leaning forward.

  I didn't answer. Instead, I frantically jerked the door handle. Click-click. Locked.

  "NO-O-O! I've been driven into a trap!" I groaned, leaning back against the seat. "Out of one hole and into another!"

  "ARE YOU AN IDIOT?!" Rabuki almost jumped in her seat. "You were almost stabbed back there! Do you even realize those weren't just some alleyway thugs? Why are they chasing you specifically?"

  "I don't know!" I snapped, fixing my messy hair. "And anyway, this is all because of you!"

  "WHAT?!" Rabuki's eyes narrowed dangerously. "I SAVED YOUR LIFE, SQUIRT!"

  "Lady Rabuki, please calm down," the driver, Rulf, spoke up without taking his eyes off the road. His calmness grated on the nerves.

  "Yeah, yeah, calm down," I chimed in, smirking maliciously. "Anger is bad for your complexion."

  Rabuki took a deep breath, trying not to lose it, and leaned back against the leather seat.

  "Alright..." she hissed. "Tell me this: are you always this much trouble?"

  "...do you... do you always carry a bio-suit under your clothes?"

  "Sometimes," she said, looking out the window.

  "You're damn lucky I happened to be nearby," she continued, quieter now.

  "Yeah, 'lucky'... If you hadn't chased after me, I wouldn't have gone into that alley in the first place. So it's still your fault."

  Rabuki stayed silent, but I could see she was thinking intensely about something.

  "This is all strange..." she said sharply. "Listen, kid. How did you jump over that wall? It was three meters high. You don't have a bio-suit on, I would have felt it."

  Before I could invent some lie about "practicing parkour," she thrust her arm forward sharply and delivered a short, precise blow right to my solar plexus.

  "OW-W!" I doubled over, gasping for air. "You little piece of... Have you completely lost it?!" I started hissing, feeling everything inside pulsing with pain. The bracelet on my arm beeped mockingly. "I'm gonna..."

  Rabuki didn't even flinch. She just raised an eyebrow, watching my reaction.

  "So... right. No bio-suit," she stated. "An ordinary body. But ordinary people don't jump like that. So come on, Helv, are you going to tell me the easy way? Or shall we continue 'the hard way'?"

  "I DEMAND A LAWYER!" I yelled, pressing my hand to my stomach.

  "Why are you so snarky?" she sighed, and something akin to exhaustion slipped into her voice. "I'm trying to do this the easy way with you. Saving your life, by the way."

  I stayed silent, turning away to the window offendedly. My stomach still ached unpleasantly.

  "Alright," she said to Rulf. "Let's go pick up Leon now. We can't leave him there, who knows if those guys are still hanging around that area."

  She sat thoughtfully, staring into the space in front of her.

  "Rulf, did you record them?"

  "Yes, my lady. I have the video footage. All faces are captured."

  "Good," Rabuki frowned. "This is very strange. Professionals of that level don't hunt ordinary schoolboys."

  The car braked by the same cafe where it all started. The door flew open, and Leon jumped inside, breathing heavily. He flopped into the front seat, shifting his bewildered gaze from me to Rabuki.

  "Oh, look at that, you're friends already?" he exhaled, trying to smooth down his messy hair.

  "Friends?!" I almost jumped in the back seat, offended to the core of my soul. "Leon, this woman is a monster! She punched me in the gut! Right in the windpipe! I can still feel my internal organs trying to relocate to the area of my spine!"

  Rabuki didn't even turn her head. She sat absolutely calm, arms crossed over her chest, and in a cold, even tone recounted to Leon everything that had happened in the alley. About the guys in gray coats, about the knives, and about how we were almost cornered by professional mercenaries.

  "See, Leon?" I waved my arm theatrically. "She is a terrible person! Not only is she a fury, but she also dragged me into all this! It's because of her bags that world-class hitmen are hunting me now!"

  Rabuki let out a long, agonizing sigh and looked at Leon with sincere sympathy:

  "Listen... how do you even hang out with him? Instead of a brain, he has a random grievance generator in his head."

  Leon frowned, looking at me in the rearview mirror.

  "You know, Arkgrim, this is too much. You should actually thank Rabuki. If it weren't for her and her car, you wouldn't be remembering pizza right now, you'd be explaining to a pathologist why you're so mouthy."

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  I froze, pressing my hand to my heart.

  "What do you mean, Leon?!" I yelled, trying to put maximum pathos into my voice. "You were the chosen one! You were supposed to fight evil, not join it!"

  And then my bracelet went crazy. It started flashing a toxic red, emitting a nasty, brain-drilling squeak. Emotions were off the charts, and the control system immediately responded with pain in my wrist.

  "Again..." Rabuki frowned, looking at my glowing arm. "What is that thing you have? Why does it yell every time you open your mouth?"

  "Just a..." I winced, trying to calm the trembling in my fingers. "A reminder. The doctors said that if I go outside the 'emotional boundaries', my amnesia could get worse. The brain kind of can't handle the stress and starts erasing data."

  I frantically started patting my pockets.

  "Damn, where is it... Where is that damn pill... Ah, here!"

  I fished out a crumpled capsule and swallowed it without even taking a drink. The effect of the neuroleptic came almost instantly. A heavy, cottony veil began to envelop my consciousness. The rage, the resentment toward Leon, the fear of the mercenaries—all of it became somehow distant and unimportant.

  "Too many... adventures for one day..." I muttered. Gravity suddenly became ten times stronger. My eyes closed on their own, and I felt myself falling into a deep, hopeless sleep.

  (Leon's POV)

  "What are you doing?!" Rabuki started to say when Arkgrim suddenly went quiet.

  But he couldn't hear anymore. Arkgrim's head swayed heavily and dropped right onto Rabuki's shoulder. She froze like a taut string, and I could have sworn that she was about to either throw him out of the moving car or hit him again. But she just sat motionless.

  "Alright... sleep, squirt," she grumbled unexpectedly quietly, relaxing her shoulder barely noticeably. "After all, when he's quiet, he almost seems cute. Almost looks like a normal person."

  I couldn't help but smile, looking at this scene.

  "So where are we going?" I asked. "I could use a ride, and then..."

  "Where does this 'freak of nature' live?" Rabuki interrupted, trying not to wake Arkgrim.

  "Over there, in the 'Anthill' on Shimoto."

  Rabuki frowned.

  "No. In this state, they'll snatch him up quickly there. Those guys clearly know where to look for him. If I leave him in that high-rise, he'll be kidnapped before dawn."

  "And what do you suggest?"

  "I don't know. Let him sleep it off, and I'll decide what to do with him then. I'll take him to a safe place for now."

  I laughed, unable to contain myself:

  "What, are you afraid to wake him up? The formidable Rabuki Nihoro is afraid to move her shoulder?"

  "Keep it down!" she shushed me, and something flashed in her eyes that I hadn't seen before. "Look at him."

  I turned around. Arkgrim was sleeping with his mouth slightly open, his breathing was even and calm. In this sleep, he truly looked defenseless. No magic, no strange phones or sarcastic jokes. Just a fourteen-year-old boy on whom the whole world had fallen.

  Soon we reached my house. The car braked softly by the curb.

  "Here," Rabuki handed me a piece of paper with her number. "Let's exchange contacts. If I find out anything about those people in gray, I'll let you know."

  I got out of the car, feeling the cold night air chill me to the bone. The black sedan pulled away silently and disappeared around the corner, carrying the sleeping Arkgrim off into the unknown.

  'This is all strange...' I thought, going up to my place. 'Just this morning we were just going on a tour. And now my friend is in the car with the most dangerous girl in the city. But for some reason, I think he'll be safer with her.'

  (Rabuki's POV)

  I looked at the sleeping Arkgrim, and a heavy premonition grew inside me. This kid was a walking magnet for trouble, and on a planetary scale at that.

  "Rulf," I called, looking in the rearview mirror. "And what am I supposed to do with him? We can't just drop him off at his building after what happened."

  Rulf, gripping the steering wheel, looked unusually tense.

  "Rabuki, it's much more serious than we thought. I just received the data from the rapid facial analysis of those attackers. They aren't thugs. One is a GRU agent from Russia, the other is a CIA operative from the States."

  I felt a chill run down my spine.

  "Intelligence agencies? After some schoolboy? What the hell is going on here?"

  "Something is clearly wrong here," Rulf answered hollowly. "He can't go back home. The 'Anthill' on Shimoto is like an open book for professionals like that. I've already contacted your father, he gave permission: the boy will stay at our estate until we figure out who he is and why half the world is hunting him."

  "Alright well..." I sighed, adjusting my hood. "Thank you, Rulf."

  (Arkgrim's POV)

  Soft... Why is it so damn soft?

  I was floating in some endless cloud. No hard springs digging into my sides, no stench of old linoleum. I slowly opened my eyes and stared at a ceiling decorated with stucco. A huge bed, snow-white silk sheets, a heavy blanket that weighed like a feather.

  "Where am I?.." I muttered. My head was empty and muffled. "What kind of bed is this..."

  I tried to sit up sharply, but the world immediately spun before my eyes. The weakness was such that I felt like all my blood had been drained. With a groan, I collapsed back into the pillows. Alright, I admit it: the bed was too awesome to leave. I'll lie here for another five minutes... or an eternity.

  There was a polite knock on the door.

  "Mr. Arkgrim, Lady Rabuki is expecting you for lunch."

  "What?.." I pulled the blanket over my head. "What lunch... And what's with the 'Mr.'?"

  But memory obligingly tossed up the image of the green-haired fury. Damn, right. This is her house. I reluctantly crawled out from under the blanket, feeling like a boiled vegetable. Outside the door, I was met by a butler—a stately old man with such impeccable bearing that I felt like a pile of garbage next to him.

  "Please follow me," he dropped dryly.

  We walked for a long time. A very long time. This house was bigger than my entire school. Endless corridors, paintings, statues... I walked, stumbling on flat ground and almost falling asleep on my feet.

  Finally, we arrived. Huge doors swung open, revealing a view of a dining room that looked more like a throne room. At the other end of an endlessly long table sat she. Rabuki.

  The butler pulled out a chair, indicating a seat for me right at her right hand. I collapsed onto the seat and immediately propped my head on my hand, feeling my eyelids fill with lead.

  "Why are you so sleepy?" Rabuki asked, squinting suspiciously. "We brought you here eight hours ago, you should be well-rested."

  "Just... didn't get enough sleep," I mumbled.

  "How can you 'not get enough sleep' in the best guest bedroom in the city?" she shook her head, but didn't continue.

  Servants began bringing in food. Something incredibly aromatic was steaming on silver platters, but to my horror, the desire to sleep was a hundred times stronger than my hunger. Every sound—the clinking of cutlery, the splash of water—echoed with a dull ache in my head.

  "Listen, Arkgrim," Rabuki put down her knife. "Before we start... Tell me about this bracelet. And about the chip on your neck. Why do you have them?"

  "Just... doctors put them in," I tried to focus my gaze on her face, but it was blurry.

  She looked at me with clear disbelief.

  "Doctors don't 'just' put such things in. This is military technology."

  "Well there was... a crash. Parents died, all that... amnesia," I spoke about it as if reading a weather forecast. "The doctors said if I get emotional, my brain will glitch and my memory will be wiped completely. That's all..."

  Rabuki froze for a moment.

  "You talk so lightly about your parents' death..."

  "I don't even know them," I shrugged. "Don't remember. No faces, no names. Empty."

  I trailed off, feeling reality beginning to slip away completely. Why am I so sleepy? Could the last pill have been defective somehow? Or is it the body's reaction to all this gold and silk around?

  I wanted to reach for the glass of water, but my arm simply refused to obey.

  "Why... so..." I whispered.

  The world went dark. In the next second, I simply collapsed face-first right into the plate of exquisite soup, instantly falling into hopeless darkness.