I shove the phone back into my pocket and push myself up from the wall. My legs are shaking but they hold. The alley is empty now — Shaujinmon and Impmon are gone, and the civilians are stumbling away in confused clusters, muttering about headaches and lost time.
I don't follow them. I run the other direction.
Olivia's apartment is six blocks. I make it in four, taking fire escapes and cutting through a parking garage when the streets get too crowded. My lungs burn. My back screams where I hit the wall. I don't slow down.
The apartment is quiet when I burst through the door. Olivia's at work. I don't have time to explain anyway.
I drop to my knees beside the bed and pull out the box. The white suit is folded neatly inside, the blue sash wrapped around it, the pink wig perched on top like a crown. I stare at it.
I told Ethan I didn't think I could do this anymore. I meant it. Every time I close my eyes I see the bank, the police officer's face, the way my body moved without my permission.
But Impmon is out there. And he saved me.
I pull on the suit. The spandex clings tight, familiar and foreign at the same time. The sash goes around my waist. The wig goes on last, and I catch my reflection in the window — pink hair, white suit, blue gloves.
Jewel.
I crack the window open and step onto the fire escape. The city sprawls below me, massive and indifferent. Somewhere out there, Shaujinmon is harvesting people's misery like it's a crop, and Impmon is caught in the middle of it.
I jump.
The wind catches me and I soar over Queens, scanning the streets below. Three blocks from the alley I spot a crowd gathered around a fountain. People standing motionless, faces slack. I circle lower. The water in the fountain has turned black, and there's a smell — stagnant, rotten, wrong.
Shaujinmon was here. Recently.
I land beside the fountain and pull out my phone, cross-referencing the location with the alley. A pattern starts to form. He's moving southeast, hitting spots where people gather — parks, plazas, subway entrances. Places dense with emotion.
I plot the trajectory on my phone's map. If he keeps this pattern, there's a convergence point. A place where three of his paths intersect.
Riverside Park. The old amphitheater by the water.
I push off the ground and fly harder than I've ever flown before, the city blurring beneath me. My hands are clenched into fists the whole way.
I'm coming, Impmon. Hold on.
I spot them from two hundred feet up.
The amphitheater is old stone, half-crumbled, tucked against the riverbank where the city forgets to look. Shaujinmon stands at center stage like he owns the place, his staff planted in the ground, dark water pooling around the base. The nine beads on his necklace pulse with a sickly amber light.
Impmon sits on the railing to the left, legs dangling, watching with an expression I can't read from this height.
I count twelve people scattered across the stone seats. They're not moving. Just sitting there, eyes open, faces blank. The air around them shimmers like heat haze, but the temperature is dropping. I can see my breath.
I land on the ridge above the amphitheater. The wind off the river whips my hair around — the pink wig, already loose from the flight. I should have tied it better.
Shaujinmon doesn't look up. He raises one hand and the dark water spreads further, creeping across the stone toward the nearest row of seats. A woman in a business suit doesn't flinch as it reaches her shoes.
"Hey!"
My voice cracks across the amphitheater. Shaujinmon's head turns slowly. Those eyes — malevolent, glowing, wrong — fix on me.
"Well." His voice is soft, polite, like a professor addressing a student who's interrupted class. "The Jewel returns."
Impmon's head snaps toward me. He groans.
"Oh, come on," he says. "Are you kidding me right now?"
I jump down from the ridge, landing on the stone tier below. The impact sends a jolt through my knees but I stay upright. I walk toward them, putting myself between Shaujinmon and the nearest cluster of people.
"Stop this," I say. "Whatever you're doing to them, stop."
Shaujinmon tilts his head. The beads on his necklace twitch — actually twitch, like something alive underneath the surface. "You are persistent. I gave you a reprieve once, at the little imp's request. Did you come back to collect another?"
"I came back because this is wrong." I gesture at the frozen people. "They're not tools. They're not — data or whatever you're harvesting. They're people."
"People." Shaujinmon repeats the word like he's tasting it. "Yes. People. Vessels of exquisite suffering. Their fear, their despair, their quiet desperation — it is a banquet, Jewel. And I am very hungry."
He turns to Impmon. "What shall I do with her this time, little imp? She is your… concern. Shall I put her to sleep again? Or would you prefer to handle it?"
Impmon hops off the railing. He doesn't look at me. His tail flicks once, sharp, irritated.
"I'll deal with her," he says.
"Impmon." I step closer. His name comes out softer than I intended. "I know you don't want to be doing this. Whatever he's holding over you — whatever he threatened — we can figure it out. Together."
He finally looks at me. Those green eyes are hard, defensive, walled off.
"You don't know anything," he says.
"I know you saved me in that alley. I know you stepped between me and his staff. That's not something a person does if they've already given up."
"You're not listening." He takes a step toward me, and there's heat rolling off him — literal heat, the air around him shimmering. "I don't need your help. I don't need your speeches. I don't need you showing up here making this harder than it already is."
"I'm not trying to make it harder. I'm trying to help you."
"You can't help me!" His voice echoes off the stone walls. He catches himself, glances at Shaujinmon, then back at me. When he speaks again it's quieter, but the anger is still there, coiled tight. "Go home, Jessica. Go back to your apartment and your terrible coffee and your normal life. This isn't your fight."
"It became my fight when he started using people like batteries."
Impmon stares at me for a long moment. Something flickers behind his eyes — something that might be guilt or frustration or fear — and then it's gone, replaced by that sharp, defiant grin I know too well.
"Fine," he says. "You want to stay? Let's go."
He drops into a fighting stance, small fists raised, flames licking at his fingertips.
I set my feet and pull my arms up. My hands are steady. My heart isn't.
"Impmon. Don't do this."
"Stop saying my name like that," he snaps. "Like we're friends."
"We are friends."
He lunges.
***
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