Colour Kid's Arc

Chapter 10 of 11

Colour Kid stood at the corner near the boarded flower shop. Pink paint peeled from the boards. A tiny blue swirl was inked low on the door frame, the same mark as on his invitation. Inside, a tall woman with a painted ribbon on her wrist was waiting. He could feel the gathering breathing behind the wood. Mara crouched in the alley across from him. She had wedged a carved wooden staff upright between two bricks. When the host inside passed the window, the staff's grain warmed for one second, then cooled. "Confirmed," Mara said into her cuff. "Host is who she says. Ribbon matches." But her scanner ticked again. Across the street, on the cracked sidewalk, a figure stood too still beside a lamp post. Hood up. No phone. No shopping. Just watching the shop door. "Tail," Mara said. "Stationary. Twelve minutes, minimum. He's logging every face that goes in." Colour Kid looked at the watcher. He did not feel afraid. He felt the slow, sad weight of it. He looked harder. Pink bled up the lamp post. Yellow ran down the watcher's sleeve. The hood went green at the edges. The watcher flinched and looked at his own hands. "Don't," Mara hissed. "That's a null spike waiting to happen." Her cuff buzzed. A cold voice cut in over the line — Hexa Vire, patched in from somewhere far and quiet. "He already pinged. I see him. Move now or lose the room." Colour Kid crossed the street. He did not run. He pressed his palm flat on the swirl mark. The door opened a crack. He stepped inside, and the boards behind him bloomed orange. The watcher was already gone, sprinting, painted, marked. The meeting had him now. But the city knew exactly where he was.