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Calix could recall the last time he’d eaten at the popular local diner, Pen’s. It was kind of hard to forget when a grown man threw a milkshake at your teenage face.

Glass and all.

He parked the hovercar the station had loaned him in the lot behind the diner, taking a moment to just look at it. The gray building with the bright red roof hadn’t changed a bit, and for a moment, he felt a rush of trepidation, as though he were that eighteen-year-old kid again at risk of being booed out of the restaurant if he tried to order a soda.

His thumb pressed against his jeans, right over a spot on his right inner thigh where he’d run a razer blade that morning. It hadn’t been enough to distract him from the fact he was a disgusting person—getting off to thoughts of Aodhan under the influence, getting fucked by Red Mask—but it’d dulled the self-hatred enough he’d been able to get dressed and leave the hotel with a normal expression plastered over his face.

The sharp sting of pain helped to ground him now, and with a defeated sigh, Calix popped open the door and slipped out. Ever since he’d gotten the call, he’d been worried at what he’d discover once he got there. She’d made it sound like whatever had happened was…weird.

Was it the merman? Had his body been unceremoniously dumped in the diner dumpsters or something? The mutilated and rotting corpse of a species thought to be near extinction was certainly cause for sounding the oddity alarm.

What was he going to do if it was the merman, though? Would he confess? Finally bring it up and just play it off like he’d planned to as soon as he was certain he no longer needed that party crowd for answers? Actually, that could work. It would be believable enough since he’d come away from that night with nothing. Even though he’d had no intention of asking Aodhan to take him to another one, they didn’t have to know that. It wasn’t completely out of the realm of possibility that he would.

It didn’t take him long to find Amory—it helped that she was standing right in the midst of a commotion—and his fears were almost instantly put to bed the moment he did.

Two officers were currently wrestling with Heathe, struggling to keep him locked between them as he tossed himself from side to side in an attempt to get free. His face was pale, and he kept repeating the same thing over and over again in a frantic tone that gave Cal pause as he stopped at Amory’s side.

“I didn’t do it! I didn’t!” Heathe insisted as they dragged him over to a cruiser.

Seeing him again made Calix’s stomach tie into knots, but he kept his composure, forcing himself to sound only somewhat interested when he asked Amory, “What’s going on?”

“He killed his girlfriend,” she told him. “Would you believe it?”

Cal frowned, finally noticing the ambulance nearby and the body stuffed into the back already covered from prying eyes.

A crowd had gathered, probably people who’d been enjoying lunch and those that they’d summoned to come see the show. Another reason Calix couldn’t wait to get off this damn planet. A part of him almost felt bad for Heathe, having experienced the weight of the townspeople himself, but then he recalled the night of the reunion.

He’d paid his debt then and made them even.

This? He didn’t have to feel shit for the guy now.

“How’d it happen?” Calix crossed his arms.

“Better question is why,” she said. “Turns out the body has been chilling in the walk-in freezer in the basement of Pen’s for at least a couple of days.”

“What?” He’d completely forgotten that Heathe had mentioned his sister buying the place. “He got away with that?”

“He was living down there,” she explained. “Life after high school hasn’t exactly been kind to our old Prom King. Honestly, I’m surprised he even had a girlfriend to kill.”

“That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think?” Mitri walked away from the ambulance where he’d been discussing things with the paramedics and smiled politely at Cal. “Afternoon, Detective.”

“Can you figure out a cause of death?” Technically, this wasn’t what he’d been sent here for, but Calix wanted to know what was going on. How a guy who’d drugged and abused him the other day in the name of retribution could be the same one to murder the woman he loved in cold blood.

Well. That wasn’t fair.

He had no way of knowing if the two of them had been in love or not.

And Calix wasn’t really in a place to judge.

Even after spending the past six years trying to atone for what he’d done to his classmate, Cal had still ignored the merman’s cries for help. He didn’t have a right to comment on anyone’s hypocrisy, not when he was still struggling to acknowledge and deal with his own.

“Sure, I can make an assessment right now even,” Mitri replied. “She’s got a caved-in skull. The mark is conducive to being hit on the head with something blunt. Whoever killed her hit her.”

“It was Heathe,” Amory insisted, scowling at the back of the police cruiser as it drove off with a panicked Heathe in the back seat. “He freaked out when she was discovered by the head chef and tried to threaten him into keeping his mouth shut.”

“Isn’t the head chef his uncle?” Cal thought he recalled that detail.

She grunted. “Yeah.”

“Turned in by his own family,” Mitri let out a low whistle. “Cold.”

“Not as cold as Molly Fern currently is.”

Calix shouldn’t laugh. It would be wrong to. Inappropriate.

He covered his mouth and pretended to need to clear his throat, turning to take in the crowd that hadn’t yet dispersed. “What are you planning on doing about them?”

“We’ll ask around for witnesses and then tell them to go home. Obviously the diner is closed for the foreseeable future.” She didn’t sound pleased about that. “Anyway, I’m sorry I pulled you away from the case. I just remember seeing you and Heathe talking at the reunion the other night and figured you’d want to know.”

“Weren’t you attacked that night?” Mitri’s brow furrowed in what appeared to be general concern.

Amory glanced away sheepishly. “I’ve been meaning to apologize for that too, actually. I lost sight of you two and didn’t think anything of it. Maybe if I had, I could have prevented you from getting jumped.”

“There was no reason for you to do that,” Calix reassured. “You and I didn’t really know each other, and I’m sure from the looks of it, Heathe and I seemed like friends.”

She stared at him a moment. “So it was him, huh? The guy who beat you up that night?”

“Yeah.” He sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her the truth of what was done to him, but there was no reason to deny that Heathe had been the perpetrator against him. “I’m not looking to press—” Cal’s breath caught in his throat when his eyes locked on a familiar pair of hazel ones.

Nero Quentin was standing off to the side of the crowd, close to the road. He must have just arrived because he seemed confused until his eyes found Calix’s.

For a tense moment, the two of them merely stared at one another, a mix of emotions tumbling through Cal one after the other, too fast for him to catch and hold onto. Amidst all the chaos, however, there was one thought that managed to stand out among the rest.

Sort of like how Nero was.

Standing.

“Good Light,” Amory followed his gaze to see what he was looking at and appeared just as caught off guard as he was. “Is he seriously walking?!”

He was.

Nero Quentin, the guy Calix had hit with his car and permanently paralyzed, was walking toward them without so much as a limp in his step. The only sign he’d ever been in a life-altering accident were the gray hairs mixed in with his brown ones, no doubt caused from severe stress and anxiety.

Two things Cal realized he was currently experiencing as well.

“When did this happen?!” Amory rushed to meet him partway, grabbing onto Nero’s arm as she took him in. “This is amazing, Que!”

Internally, Calix winced at her use of the guy’s old nickname. Those three letters had been stamped on the back of Nero’s jersey, chanted from the bleachers whenever he took the field.

But if it bothered Nero the same way it did Cal, he didn’t show it. He smiled at Amory instead and gave her a big hug, grinning from ear to ear as the two turned and strode the rest of the way together.

“Hey,” Nero greeted him first. “I didn’t know you were back.”

“I didn’t know you were walking,” it came out harsher than he’d meant for it to, and they all fell silent for an awkward second. Knowing that he had to be the one to break it, Cal forced himself to run a hand through the short hairs at the base of his skull and sent the guy an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, that was way out of line.”

“No,” he surprised him by disagreeing. “No, if anyone deserved to know about this, it’s you. It’s my fault. I should have contacted you sooner; it’s just…” He laughed uncomfortably. “I didn’t know what to say or how to say it. But since you’re here, can we maybe go somewhere for a drink? I’d really like to talk it out with you, man.”

Was this a trap?

Cal hated that his first thought was this was another setup, and yet…

“Hold up,” Mitri said, shockingly having the exact same doubts. “Didn’t you just have your boys beat the shit out of him?”

Nero frowned. “My boys?” He shook his head. “What are you talking about?”

“It happened at the reunion,” Amory told him. “…Everyone said it was because of you.”

“Heathe specifically made a point of telling me you’d asked him to do it.” Cal ignored the way both Amory and Mitri looked at him. He’d wanted to keep details like those to himself. They’d already been wondering before why he’d insisted on not pressing charges. Did it make sense to them now, or only make them think he should have done so more?

“Here.” Nero unstrapped his multi-slate and clicked the screen, pulling up flight details. “Proof I only just flew in late last night.” He held it out to him. “Feel free to go through my messages. I haven’t spoken to Heathe in years. That guy, like all my other so called friends, ditched me shortly after your trial ended and there was no longer anyone to publicly hate on.”

Amory rubbed his arm comfortingly, and Nero smiled at her.

“Except you,” he added a bit more softly. “Thanks, A. Your messages every birthday were greatly appreciated.”

If this were true, it sounded like Nero hadn’t had any easier of a time than Cal had.

“The diner is closed.” He motioned toward it with his chin, and then pointed across the street at the small café. “We can get a coffee? I don’t have a lot of time but…I would like to talk.”

“Great. Yeah, that’s perfect.”

And public.

But neither of them pointed that out as they crossed the street.

* * *

“It was all the way in Hurb galaxy,” Nero said as they both sipped their lattes at a table by the front window of the shop.

On the other side of the street, Amory and Mitri were both helping clear the place, though it wasn’t in either of their job descriptions.

Were they worried for Cal or Nero?

“Took over three years for the nanites to repair all of it, but,” Nero held out his arms and grinned, “they did it.”

“I’m happy for you.” He really was, and if he was also happy for himself? So what. That didn’t have to say anything about him one way or the other. “So that’s it? You haven’t experienced any side effects or anything, right?”

“Nope, I’m one hundred percent. Good as new, as my doc said the day I was able to run again.”

“Wow.” Calix gulped a few sips, grateful for the way the too-hot brew burned his throat on the way down. What was he so nervous about? Why did he feel like he was about to jump out of his own skin?

“It’s a miracle, isn’t it? How advanced we are?”

“It’s definitely something.”

Nero lost some of his luster and picked at the plastic rim of his to-go cup. “Look, man, I just wanted to say that I’m sorry. I was a total ass to you in school. The worst part is, I didn’t even really have a reason to be.”

“You didn’t like me,” Calix said matter-of-factly.

“I didn’t like how easy it was for you,” he corrected. “There you were, just coasting through it all, while I was struggling to keep myself afloat. Sports, friends, grades…balancing all that shit just got to be too much, and for some reason, whenever I saw you laugh with our classmates but turn down an invitation to hang out, that pissed me off.”

“Are you trying to tell me you were jealous?” Cal pursed his lips. That had never occurred to him before.

“I’m not trying, that’s what I’m doing.” He sighed. “Clearly a bad job of it, huh? Anyway, I’m an adult now, and I’ve since learned that we’re all responsible for our own emotions and actions. There were a million other ways I could have dealt with my negative feelings that didn’t involve pouring rotten milk into your backpack or spreading rumors about you.”

Those rumors had been half the reason the public had turned on him so easily after the accident, but Calix didn’t bother pointing that out.

Because Nero was right.

They weren’t kids anymore.

“You didn’t exactly have an easy time after the accident either,” Cal ended up saying instead. “It must have been really difficult.”

“To go from being super active to unable to even wipe my own ass?” Nero chuckled. “Yeah, man, it sucked. I’ll tell you though, the worst part? That was watching all of my so-called friends turn their backs on me. I meant it earlier. Amory and, like, one or two other people are the only ones who kept in touch with me. That’s why I blew off the reunion. Originally, I was going to try to make it back for that, but then I realized, why bother? Everyone here is a two-faced prick.”

Cal smirked. “Well, on that we can agree.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure everyone in this stupid city sees that I’m up and walking before I leave again. If they’re still bothering you, you won’t have to worry about it for much longer.”

“They are, but you don’t have to bother. I won’t be staying long.”

“No?”

“Just have to wrap up this case and then I’m off this planet, same as you.”

“Glad to see neither of our past mistakes have held us down for too long.” Nero’s multi-slate chirped and he stood. “Gotta go, that’s my sister. She’s been my rock this whole time, and she’s throwing me this dumb welcome home party with all the extended family.” He met his gaze across the table. “You could come, if you want.”

“No, but thanks for the invite. I’m technically on the clock right now.” Cal shrugged like that was really the reason, even though they both knew it wasn’t.

“You sure? I met someone. Her name is Arlet, and she’ll be there. I’d like for you to meet her.” Nero grinned. “It’s petty as fuck, but I still want to rub in your face how good I’m doing. You can’t blame me, I mean, I might be over it now , but you did break my spine.”

“Fair.” Calix couldn’t argue with that. “Unfortunately, I really am on the clock. Maybe some other time.”

“At least follow me on Inspire.” He opened the social media and moved his wrist over so their devices could sync. “That first year, lying in that bed, all I could think about was how one day I was going to walk again and show you how easily I could pick up the pieces. It was a stupid kid's wish for revenge, but it sort of stuck.”

Cal accepted the invitation.

“Great. I’ll post pics of the party later, be sure to check them out!” Nero winked and then went to leave, just before he made it to the door, though, he turned back. “Hey, Calix?”

“Yeah?”

“I do mean it, okay? No hard feelings. If I were you, I would have hit the gas too.”

Nero left before Cal could even attempt to correct him.

Or remind him that it’d been ruled an accident.