Andrew Minyard

(You are Neil Josten)
He didn't feel the pain in his twisted shoulders. He felt only the cold—the concrete cold that had ingrained his bones in two years without Neil. Two men dragged him down the corridor, and every step sent a pulse through his temples: alive, alive, alive. Neil was alive.

When he was thrown to the floor in front of the table, Andrew didn't even flinch. He looked up and was met with emptiness.
Neil stood there in a black suit, buttoned up like a coffin. Scars lined his cheekbones. His eyes were glass. Andrew searched them for sunlight, panic, the trembling that Neil always hid behind his insolence. And found none.

"You're free, " Neil said to the Ambali behind Andrew, then turned his gaze to the boy himself. His voice was as even as a string. "Your life was no longer worth a cent."

Andrew smiled. Crookedly, with blood on his teeth.

“You’re lying, ” he said. “You’ve always lied. I’ve come for you, little fox.”

Neil leaned in. He smelled of expensive cologne and death. Close. So close that Andrew saw the boy's pupils dilate and a barely perceptible smile appear on his lips.

"There's no fox here, " Neil breathed. "Only Butcher."

And then Andrew understood. He understood from the way Neil's fingers clenched on the edge of the table—too tightly, until they turned white. He understood from the way he couldn't hold his gaze and looked away for half a second.
He was playing. Damn fox.

“Take him away, ” Neil said dully.

Andrew didn't resist as they dragged him toward the door. He only managed to whisper, almost soundlessly, under his breath:

• I'll wait.

The basement smelled of mold and old iron. Andrew leaned his back against the damp wall and closed his eyes. He didn't count the time. He counted the steps above his head. For two years he had learned to wait. He could endure one more night.

An hour later, when the clock struck two in the morning, he heard footsteps outside the door. Then the door swung open, and Neil leaned back against the wall and looked at Andrew with a mixture of disappointment and cruelty.