“Hey. Teacher.”
I glanced back. He was standing in the park’s shadow-line, hands stuffed in his pockets like he couldn’t be bothered and absolutely was. Manny lingered beside him, weight settled, eyes doing quiet geometry.
Haley slowed. I matched.
Jax jerked his chin toward the other end of Mill. “You’re really going to Belmont and Ninth tonight?”
“Thinking about it,” I said.
“Don’t,” he said.
“Noted,” I said. “We’ll be there.”
Manny huffed a breath that might’ve been a laugh. “If you’re dead set on stupid,” he said, “at least don’t go in blind. Come by the center first. Two blocks east, old brick with the blue mural and busted bell. We’ll walk you through the rules.”
Haley studied him. “This you,” she asked, “or Vee?”
Manny scratched his beard. “Call it community outreach.”
Jax shrugged. “Call it me not wanting to scrape what’s left of you off a rail.”
He didn’t wait for an answer. They turned away in sync, heading back through the park like they’d never left. Decision dropped at our feet.
Haley sighed, tongue pressed to her cheek. “He’s annoying,” she muttered.
“They care,” I said.
“Yeah,” she said softly. “That’s the annoying part.”
We cut east.
The “center” could’ve been a dozen things in a past life: small factory, warehouse, body shop. Now it was a brick rectangle with a faded turquoise mural splashed across the front—hands holding up a city skyline, cartoon halos crooked over the worst parts. The metal bell above the door was cracked down the middle; somebody tied a plastic rosary around it like they could keep it from falling apart with prayer.
Kids spilled in and out. Not daycare small—twelve, fifteen, seventeen, all that wild edge where you could go hero or monster and the difference was who opened the right door at the right time.
Two boys were arguing over a busted skateboard at the stairs. One had faint, silvery scales at his wrists that caught the light. Another, maybe thirteen, laughed too hard and opened his mouth too wide; just for a second his teeth looked a little too many.
Haley clocked all of it in a single glance. Shoulders eased a fraction. “She did good,” she murmured.
“Yeah,” I said. Sherlock flashed a discreet overlay: Magical signatures: minor. Wards: passive. Threat: low unless provoked. Kids, in other words. Kids with extra hardware.
Inside, the air hit different—cooler, layered with detergent, cheap deodorant, something frying in a back kitchen, and the metal tang of ancient weight racks. Music played from somewhere—a lyric-less beat, bass low, meant for movement. The chipped hardwood floor had been mostly sanded, painted lines ghosting where someone tried to turn it into a proper court.
Posters, flyers, and sharpie-scrawled rules covered one wall:
- NO GUNS INSIDE.
- NO SNITCHES.
- NO TOUCHING THE KIDS.
- RING FEES WAIVED FOR LOCALS.
- ASK MANNY OR VEE BEFORE YOU DO SOMETHING STUPID.
Between the boxing posters and community schedules I caught a glimpse of another board half-hidden behind a crooked bulletin: names, dates, symbols beside them. Sherlock zoomed, tagged it as roster / coded / not local league.
Manny stepped out of a side hallway like he’d been waiting for us to cross the threshold.
“You came,” he said.
“Was there a correct answer?” I asked.
He shrugged. “We offered advice. You’d have been dumber to skip it.”
Jax trailed out behind him, chewing on a toothpick, eyes flicking over us, then the kids. He tapped a teen on the back of the head with two fingers—gentle, familiar. “You finish your drills, Lil Momo, or I’m stealing your kicks,” he said.
The boy grinned, flipped him off in that affectionate way only people who trust you can, then went back to the heavy bag.
Haley watched all that, chin propped up just enough to hide the softness in her eyes. “Nice place,” she said.
“Patchwork,” Manny said. “But it holds.”
“And Vee?” she asked.
He jerked his head toward the back. “Putting out fires. You get us.”
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“We suffer,” Jax said flatly. “Tragic.”
“Lead on, tragic,” I said.
He snorted, but a ghost of a grin twitched at his mouth as he turned.
They took us to a room off the main gym—half office, half storage. A crooked desk, a couch that had seen things, mini-fridge humming in the corner. Whiteboard on the wall with numbers and schedule blocks; punching mitts and headgear stacked in milk crates. The only window had bars. Not symbolic. Practical.
Manny shut the door behind us. The noise from the gym dropped to a muffled backdrop. For the first time since we’d walked in, the center felt less like sanctuary and more like a lion’s den with decent hospitality.
“You want into The Yard,” Manny said. “You’re going tonight.”
“Thinking about it,” I said.
Jax kicked the side of a crate, toothpick shifting between his teeth. “Stop saying thinking,” he said. “You already decided in the park. Vee saw it. I saw it. The kids probably saw it.”
Haley smirked. “You psychic now?”
“Experience,” he said. “People with death wishes all walk the same.”
“Relax,” I said. “We’re not tourists.”
“That’s the problem,” Jax muttered.
Manny dragged a folding chair to face us and sat, elbows on knees, hands clasped. “Okay,” he said. “Ground rules. You don’t have to like them. You just have to live through them.”
Haley leaned back against the desk, arms crossed, one boot hooked around the leg like she owned the furniture. I stayed standing, hands in my pockets, watching, listening.
“First,” Manny said. “Cover. You’re not cops. You don’t say ‘investigation,’ ‘case,’ or anything that smells like courtroom. You’re punters with money, or talent with something to prove. Nothing else plays.”
“And what are we?” I asked.
He looked me up and down. “You?” He scratched his beard. “You’re a bored rich kid slumming it for adrenaline. Got the glasses, got the shoes, talk like books. They’ll buy that.”
Haley snorted softly.
“And her?” I asked.
Manny’s gaze slid to Haley, lingered. His tone lost some edge. “She can be talent,” he said. “Scout. Handler. Whatever. They like a woman who looks like she won’t flinch and might stab you. She reads as that.”
“They’d be right,” Haley said.
“Second rule,” Jax cut in. He’d moved to lean against the door, arms folded, casual bouncer. “You don’t act shocked. No matter what you see. Screaming, blood, some dude growing extra teeth—breathe through it. That place feeds on reactions. Don’t feed it.”
“Seen worse,” I said.
“Everyone says that,” he repeated from earlier.
“Everyone is usually wrong,” I said.
His eyes narrowed just enough to be satisfied.
“Third,” Manny said. “You don’t bring weapons you’re not ready to lose. If they search you—and they will—and find something cute, they’ll either take it, use it on someone, or decide you’re lying about who you are. Any of those gets messy. So we recommend—”
“Hands,” Jax said. “Or things that don’t look like what they are.”
Haley’s thumb brushed the chain at her neck where her “bike” rested in pendant form. She gave me the tiniest side-eye. She was thinking what I was thinking—enchanted tech? Grey zone. Fun.
“Fourth rule,” Manny continued. “If they clock you as supernatural, you’re either more valuable or more in danger. Depends who’s shopping that night.”
“Shopping,” I repeated.
He met my gaze. “You’re not stupid. You know what I mean.”
Yeah, I did. Flesh markets came in more models than just cages and chains.
Haley’s jaw ticked once. “We’re going for information,” she said. “Not recruitment.”
Jax snorted. “They don’t care what you’re going for.”
“Anything else?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Manny said. “Don’t say Rico’s name like you own it. Don’t say La Sombra at all.”
A beat.
“You know that one?” he asked.
“I’ve heard stories,” I said.
Haley’s eyes flicked to me for a fraction of a second. It didn’t escape either man.
Jax pushed off the wall, restless. “Fifth rule,” he said. “Trust no one in there. Not the pretty ones, not the quiet ones, not the ones who act like your cousin. The house is always in on it. The crowd is half tourists, half monsters. The fighters are desperate. Staff’s paid in fear. Nobody’s clean.”
“And you two?” I asked.
Manny shrugged. “We don’t go anymore.”
“Can’t,” Jax added. “Vee says if we walk back in, she breaks our legs, then whoever’s running it tries to buy us. Either way, kids lose coaches. That math sucks.”
Haley let out a breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. “She’s mellowed.”
“Nah,” Jax said. “She’s just more efficient.”
Sherlock pinged at the edge of my vision:
Note: environment flagged as partial sanctuary. Subject “MANNY” — protective alignment. Subject “JAX” — loyalty-oriented. Threat-scan: conditional ally status.
“I’ve got a question,” Haley said. “You two risk pissing off your boogeyman handing us this.”
Manny met her gaze evenly. “We’re not handing you him. We’re handing you a road. Roads go both ways. Maybe you walk in and die. Our hands are clean. Maybe you walk in and break something. Our kids sleep better.”
Jax shrugged. “Worst case, you make noise. Noise is a good distraction.”
“I appreciate your honesty,” I said.
“Don’t,” Jax replied.
Haley’s eyes softened a hair at Manny. “She’d kill you if she knew you were doing this.”
“She knows,” he said. “She sent you here without walking you in. That’s her brand of consent.”
That tracked.
Manny reached into the mini-fridge, grabbed two cold water bottles, rolled one to Haley, one to me. “Hydrate,” he said. “You’re going to be on your feet awhile. They like to tire out the new meat before they carve it.”
“Reassuring,” I said.
He shrugged. “I’m not the reassuring one.”
Haley twisted the cap open, took a sip, studying him over the lip. “Any tells we should look for? Men in suits? Symbols?”
Manny hesitated. Jax watched him. Something passed between them; a long argument already had in shorter words.
“Look for the ones who don’t flinch when the bad stuff happens,” Manny said finally. “Everybody’s got a reaction. The ones in charge don’t.”
“And trucks,” Jax added grudgingly. “You see six-axle heavies come and go near there? That’s not food deliveries. That’s product.”
“Product,” I said. “Leaf?”
“Leaf. Other things,” Manny said. “People. Favors. I don’t ask anymore.”
Sherlock filed the word cluster into a neat, ominous package in my peripheral.
Haley rolled her shoulders, already shifting into game mode. “Time?”
“Doors open for private play around ten,” Manny said. “Crowd thickens by eleven. Main shows hit after midnight. That’s when you’ll see the real faces.”
“We’ll go early,” I said.
“Of course you will,” Jax murmured.
Manny stood, the conversation closing. “We’ll get you out the side. Less eyes. You didn’t learn anything here.”
“Didn’t we?” I asked.
He smiled without humor. “Nothing that’ll hold up in court.”
They walked us back through the center. With the door at our backs, the place felt like what it was supposed to be: a shield built out of bad decisions and stubbornness.
A girl with headphones wrapped around her neck and faint fox ears half-hidden under her curls was showing a younger boy how to jab-cross without breaking his wrists. A heavy bag swung; chalk dust hung in the air like spirit residue. Someone in the back yelled, “Lunch in ten!” and a cheer went up.
“These kids know?” I asked, keeping my voice low.
“Know what?” Manny replied.
“Where the money comes from. What moves outside.”
“They know enough,” he said. “Enough to stay on this side of the door.”
Jax bumped fists with a kid who had tiny budding horns at his hairline. “Do your homework, Diablo,” he said.
“Already did, fool,” the kid shot back.
Haley watched all of it with that look she got sometimes—half pride, half guilt, like she was measuring all the places she’d failed to do this.
I bumped her shoulder with mine, barely. “It’s a good spot,” I said.
“Could’ve been more of them,” she muttered.
“Could’ve been none,” I said.
She didn’t answer, but her hand brushed mine for half a heartbeat. Ghost of contact. Gone as soon as it registered.
At the door, Jax stopped us. His expression was flatter now.
“One last thing,” he said. “You go in there as Mateo and… whatever you’re calling her tonight.”
“Jade,” Haley said smoothly. “Sometimes.”
He nodded slowly. “You go in as them. You leave as them. You don’t drop masks mid-show. The Pit eats secrets. Don’t feed it the good ones.”
Our gazes met. For a second, I wondered how much he saw. Sherlock hummed, trying to trace what wasn’t on any mortal web.
“You see something on us you don’t like?” I asked, light.
“I see you’re not stupid,” he said. “That’s rare around here.”
Manny opened the side door, sunlight cutting a bright blade across the gym floor.
“You step right, you might live,” he said.
We stepped out.
The door clicked shut behind us, muting laughter, the smack of gloves, the brief illusion of a better world.
Out here, the heat came back twice as hard.
Haley exhaled, long. “Well.”
“Well,” I echoed.
“You trust them?” she asked.
“I trust their priorities,” I said. “That’s almost better.”
She nodded once. “We gear up. We scout the Yard before showtime. Sherlock map the exterior, look for cameras, exits, vehicle patterns.”
“Already on it,” Sherlock chimed in the corner of my vision, text scrolling: Task queued.
Haley smirked faintly. “Show-off,” she said.
“Present company included,” I said.
She bumped my arm, less ghostly this time. “Don’t die tonight, Reyes.”
“That’s still the plan,” I said.
We walked down the block, away from the cracked bell and kids with budding claws, toward Belmont and Ninth and the hole in the city everyone pretended not to see.
Somewhere under our feet, The Pit was already waking up.