The Ames household hummed with a low-grade, helpless anxiety. Ace could hear it from the entryway—the murmured circles of conversation in the living room, the same words looping like a stuck record: therapist, school, what do we do, we should call…
He didn't join the chorus. He walked past the open door, a ghost in his own temporary life, and went straight to the small room that served as his. The space was neutral, holding none of his real self. It made the next act feel more deliberate, like a soldier gearing up in a borrowed barracks.
He stripped off the school uniform, the fabric still carrying the psychic residue of the classroom stares and the alley's damp fear. He folded it neatly on the mattress—a small, pointless act of order before stepping into chaos.
From his bag, he retrieved his own armor.
The raw denim jeans were stiff, tough, and forgiving. They could take a scrape, allow for a sudden sprint or a high kick without complaint. The sneakers were black, scuffed from more than school hallways, their soles patterned for grip on things far less stable than linoleum. Lastly, the blue zipper hoodie. It was old, the cotton soft from countless washes. On the back, a faded graphic of stylized wings was spread, a gift from his mother years ago, bought from some mundane store in a mall. He'd always found the irony darkly funny. Wings. For a life that felt permanently grounded by weight and duty.
He pulled it on. As he zipped it up to his throat, he felt the shift. The weight of the fabric was a comfort, a known quantity. It wasn't a disguise; it was the shedding of one. Ace the worried cousin, the problematic student, the son who disappointed… he folded those identities away with the uniform. What was left in the mirror was something simpler, more focused. The Hunter. The Operator.
He walked back out, a different silhouette against the dim hall light.
Cedric was waiting for him on the front step, leaning against the railing. He, too, had changed. His usual tidy-casual look was replaced by dark, flexible trousers and a close-fitting grey sweatshirt that allowed for maximum mobility. No logos, nothing flashy. Functional. He looked at Ace, took in the hoodie, the set of his shoulders, and gave a single, approving nod. They were syncing up. Two pieces of the same machine.
"Let's move," Ace said, his voice quiet.
They walked down the residential streets, the late afternoon sun casting long, dramatic shadows. The normalcy of sprinklers hissing on lawns and the smell of someone's dinner cooking was a surreal backdrop.
After a block of silence, Cedric spoke, his tone analytical. "So. How do we find Philip?"
"We don't."
Cedric glanced at him, a flicker of confusion that lasted only a second before his expression cleared, replaced by a slow, understanding smile. It was a hunter's smile. "So he'll be the one who finds us."
Ace nodded, eyes scanning the quiet street ahead. "I just beat six of his guys and turned his best extortionist into a crying wreck. His reputation is bleeding. A leader like that can't ignore it. He has to respond. And he'll want to do it publicly, to reassert control." He spoke with the cold certainty of someone who understood the predatory ego all too well.
Cedric's smile turned into a soft, humorless chuckle. "Setting a trap by being the obvious bait. Bold. I like it."
Their destination was no mystery. They went to the source—the small, scrubby park where this entire spiral had begun, where Ace had first confronted Zach over Carl's stolen money. The scene of the original crime. It was poetic, and it sent the clearest possible message: I am not hiding. I am right where you first found me. Come and see what happens now.
They chose the swings. It was a child's perch, a place of innocent play, which made their presence there all the more a calculated provocation. Ace sat, the chains creaking softly, and pulled out his phone. He didn't scroll with any real focus; it was a prop, a picture of casual disregard. Cedric sat on the swing beside him, pushing off gently with his toes, setting himself into a slow, idle arc.
They waited. Not with nervous tension, but with the deep, patient stillness of anglers who have cast their line into perfect, known waters. The hunt was passive now. A test of wills. A game of who would break their own pattern first.
The sun dipped lower. The park emptied of mothers and toddlers. The stage was clearing for the main event.
They swung in companionable silence for twenty minutes, the rhythmic creak-creak of the chains a metronome counting down to an inevitable clash. The park emptied, the golden hour light turning the grass a deep, unreal green. It was the perfect, lonely stage for a confrontation.
Ace saw them first in his peripheral vision. A group of five, maybe six, filtering into the park from the north entrance. They moved with a slouching, deliberate casualness that was anything but casual. All of them wore cheap nylon face masks pulled down under their chins like neck gaiters, a promise of anonymity held in reserve.
Scouts, Ace thought, without breaking the slow arc of his swing. He sent lookouts first. Good. He's cautious, but not cautious enough.
One of them, a lanky figure with a red beanie, spotted them on the swings. He froze, then nudged the guy next to him and pointed. A hushed conference. Ace kept his eyes on his phone, the glow illuminating his impassive face. He saw Cedric, from the corner of his eye, stop swinging and lean back, stretching his arms along the chains as if bored. It was a posture of supreme vulnerability and total disregard—a masterpiece of baiting.
The scout in the red beanie didn't approach. He pulled out his phone, dialed, and turned his back, speaking in low, urgent tones.
"He's making the call," Cedric murmured, so softly the words barely carried on the evening breeze.
"Mm," Ace grunted, a sound of acknowledgment. The performance was underway. They were live.
The response was not subtle.
Five minutes later, the air changed. First came the sound—a low, guttural thrum-thrum-thrum that resolved into the ragged snarl of multiple unmuffled engines. Not sleek motorcycles, but old-school choppers, machines built for noise and show. Two, then three, then four of them rolled into the parking lot adjacent to the park, a procession of chrome and bad attitude.
The scouts stood straighter, puffing out their chests. The main event had arrived.
The riders killed the engines, and in the sudden ringing silence, one figure dismounted. He was tall, maybe 6'1", with the lean, wiry build of a street fighter. He, too, wore a black ski mask, but his was pulled up, fully concealing his face. This wasn't a scout's promise of anonymity; this was a statement. He was The Idea of Philip, not a person.
He walked toward the swings, not with a rush, but with a slow, sauntering stride that ate up the distance. It was a walk Ace recognized instantly. Too slow. Too much hip. This was a guy who'd practiced this walk in a mirror, who loved the script of intimidation. He was performing for an audience: his crew at his back, and the two kids he was about to terrorize.
The man stopped a few feet in front of them. With a flick of his wrist, he produced a knife. It wasn't a switchblade, but a mean-looking folding tactical knife. He clicked it open. The sound was absurdly loud in the quiet park. Another theatrical beat, Ace noted.
He pointed the blade, not directly at Ace's face, but in his general direction, a lazy, contemptuous gesture. "You Ace?" The voice from behind the mask was young, trying for a gravelly annoyance but undercut by a thread of performative ego.
Ace didn't answer right away. He let the question hang, tilting his head as if considering a complex philosophical query. He finished the text he wasn't actually reading and slowly put his phone in his pocket. He looked up, meeting the dark holes of the ski mask.
"What if I am?" Ace asked, his voice flat, devoid of the fear the performance demanded.
The masked man—Philip—chuckled, a hollow sound. He stepped closer, invading Ace's space. He raised the knife, this time placing the cold, flat of the blade against the side of Ace's throat, just below the jaw. Ace didn't flinch. He could feel a slight, almost imperceptible tremor in Philip's wrist. Adrenaline. Nerves. The desire to look vicious overriding fine motor control.
"Don't act too cocky, kid," Philip hissed, the mask muffling his words into a sinister whisper. "My rep is already in the toilet because of you. Don't make this any harder than it has to be."
Ace remained still, his breathing even. He looked past the knife, directly into where Philip's eyes would be. "Kids like you shouldn't play with knives," Ace said, his tone that of a mildly disappointed teacher. "They can cut, you know?"
Philip jerked the knife away from Ace's throat as if stung by the calm. He took a step back, then let out a louder, forced laugh for the benefit of his crew. He crouched down in front of Ace, putting them at eye level. This close, Ace could smell cheap deodorant and stale cigarettes.
In a new, twisted, conversational tone—a villain savoring his monologue—Philip whispered, "Hey, kid... you ever been fucked up by a knife before?" He slowly brought the tip of the blade to press against the fabric of Ace's hoodie, right over his stomach. It was a promise, a slow-motion threat. One wrong twitch, one more smart remark, and it would be a pledge fulfilled.
Philip continued, his voice dripping with a sense of unassailable power. "You see... you're nothing. A bug. Even if I stabbed you right here, right now, and watched you bleed out on this kid's playground... no one would care. No one would dare care." He leaned in, the knife applying firmer pressure. "Because I've got connections. I've got a system. You're playing in a sandbox, thinking you're tough. I own the fucking city."
He had reached the climax of his script. The threat was delivered. The power was, in his mind, absolute.
Ace listened to it all, his expression never changing. He was studying the performance, waiting for the curtain to fall so the real play could begin.
Philip held the knife-point against Ace's stomach, waiting for the flinch, the plea, the cracking of that infuriating calm. He was poised at the peak of his performance, a king of his grim, small domain.
Ace laughed.
It wasn't a loud, mocking laugh. It was a quiet, almost private exhalation of breath that carried a universe of contempt. It was the sound of someone watching a dog try to do calculus.
Philip's mask twitched. "You think this is funny?"
Ace didn't answer with words. His right hand, which had been resting casually in the pocket of his hoodie, moved. Not with a jerk, not with a flashy draw. It moved with a disconcerting, liquid smoothness that bypassed Philip's threat-processing entirely. One second, the hand was in his pocket. The next, there was a shape of cold, blued steel resting against Philip's lower abdomen, concealed perfectly in the narrow space between their bodies, hidden from the watching crew by the angle of the swing and Ace's own frame.
Philip's breath hitched. His eyes, visible through the mask's holes, went wide. The pressure of the knife against Ace's hoodie went slack.
Ace leaned forward, just an inch, bringing his lips close to the wool of Philip's mask, near his ear. His voice was a whisper, a serrated edge of sound that carried no further than the two of them.
"You ever been fucked up by a gun before?"
The world narrowed to a pinprick for Philip. The park, his crew, the choppers—all of it dissolved into a roaring white noise. All that existed was the certainty of the round in the chamber, the cold of the barrel seeping through his shirt, and the absolute, terrifying void in Ace's eyes up close. This wasn't the bravado of a cornered kid pulling a piece. This was the calm of a mechanic presenting a tool.
Philip's mind, trained in the posturing violence of the street, scrambled for a reference point and found none. He'd grown up around tough guys, knife-fighters, loudmouths. This… this was different. The lack of fear wasn't an act. The lack of anger was even worse. It was procedural. This kid wasn't trying to scare him. He was simply informing him of a new, lethal fact of life. And in that horrifying instant, a primal, animal part of Philip's brain screamed a truth his ego couldn't process: This one has killed before. He knows what it feels like. He will not hesitate.
Ace watched the realization dawn—the rigid freeze, the dilation of the pupils behind the mask. He saw the performance drain away, leaving only raw, shivering prey. He maintained the pressure of the gun.
Slowly, as if handling a live wire, Ace used his left hand to reach up and gently push the now-limp knife hand away from his body. Philip offered no resistance. The knife clattered to the asphalt, a pathetic, forgotten prop.
Keeping the gun firmly in place, Ace whispered again, his lips barely moving. "Are you Phillip?"
A jerky, frantic nod.
"Alright. So I'm gonna be asking the questions now." Another nod, this one weaker. "Tell me where I can find Jamie."
The name was a new shock. Philip's body gave a full-body flinch. He gulped, the sound loud in the tiny, private hellscape between them. "I… I don't know," he whispered back, the lie pathetic and transparent even to himself.
Ace slowly shook his head, a minuscule movement of disappointment. "I won't take 'I don't know' for an answer." His thumb made a soft, deliberate sound as it brushed the side of the hammer. It wasn't a cock—it was a suggestion. A promise of the next logical step in this terrible equation.
Philip broke. Sweat bloomed across his forehead, beading under the mask. "I'm not sure! I swear! But… but he goes to a cram school. A private one. Near Northgate Academy. Around this time. That's… that's where he is most evenings."
Ace held his gaze for three long seconds, verifying the truth in the panic. He gave a single, curt nod. "Good."
With the same unnerving smoothness, he withdrew the gun, breaking the cold contact. He didn't put it away immediately. He let Philip see it for a half-second longer—a sleek, black finality—before slipping it back into his hoodie pocket.
He leaned in one last time, his whisper now carrying the weight of a command that would define Philip's future. "Now. You're going to stand up. You're going to walk back to your crew. And you're going to tell them I was just a random kid who got lucky. That I'm not worth the trouble. That the Blue Dragons have bigger problems than me. You will tell them to leave me, and everyone connected to me, completely and permanently alone." He paused, letting the order sink into Philip's fear-soaked mind. "Do you understand the script?"
Philip nodded, a marionette with its strings cut.
"Then get up. And sell it."
Ace leaned back on his swing, picking up his phone as if checking a new notification. The transition was so complete, so utterly casual, it was more terrifying than any glare.
Philip stared at the space where the gun had been, at the boy now idly scrolling. He clumsily got to his feet, his legs unsteady. He turned his back on Ace, a monumental act of trust he had no choice but to give. He bent, scooped up his knife with a trembling hand, and walked back toward his crew, who stood in a confused, tense cluster.
"What happened, boss?" one of the scouts asked. "He give you trouble?"
Philip stopped, squaring his shoulders. He forced a scoff, layering bravado over the terror that still chilled his guts. "Nah. Just some punk with a loud mouth. Got lucky with Zach's crew, that's all. Not worth our time. We got bigger shit to deal with than some schoolkid. Forget about him."
The orders were met with mumbled assent and shrugs. The performance, though hollow to Philip, was convincing enough for them. They were used to following his tone, not dissecting his pallor. He led them back to the choppers without a backward glance, the roar of the engines this time sounding like a frantic retreat.
In the sudden quiet of the park, Cedric let out a long, slow breath. He hadn't moved from his swing, but every muscle had been coiled, his eyes tracking the other gang members the entire time. He looked at Ace.
Ace was already standing, putting his phone away. The twilight had deepened, casting his face in shadow. He met Cedric's look, and in his eyes was no triumph, no adrenaline crash. Just the cold, clear focus of a hunter who had successfully acquired his target.
"Cram school. Northgate area," Ace said, the first words spoken above a whisper since the confrontation began.
Cedric stood, nodding. The bait was taken, the trap sprung, the intelligence secured. Phase one was complete.
Without another word, they turned and walked out of the park, two shadows melting into the deepening blue of evening, leaving behind only the empty swings, gently twisting in the breeze.