"You don't have to leave," said Zoe. "Do you? Can you stay a bit?"
Banger seemed touched by the invitation. He smiled, and sat back down on the stone floor. Zoe pointed to a tattoo on his right arm: a weird, spotted animal with a spiked tail and a long curving neck that nearly touched the ground.
"X has that one, too," she said. "I never asked him about it. You have different animals in the Lowlands, huh?"
Banger snorted.
"We actually don't," he said. "The guy who inks all the bounty hunters? He's this senile old dude who's been dead since, like, Pompeii-and he doesn't remember what a lot of animals actually look like. This one is supposed to be a giraffe."
"No way," said Zoe.
"Way!" said Banger.
"People don't say that anymore either," said Zoe.
"I figured," said Banger. "Anyway, I wigged out when I saw the tat. This thing with the horns is supposed to be a monkey."
Zoe laughed. She thought of "Never Don't Stop." Would she ever date a guy with normal tattoos?
"Does X know they aren't real animals?" she said.
"I never told him," said Banger. "It'd break his heart, and I'm kind of protective of him-because, like you said, he's an innocent. Don't you tell him, either, okay?"
"I won't," said Zoe. She smiled. "I'm kind of protective of him, too."
Zoe glanced at her watch. It was nearly ten. Soon, her mom would be outside honking for her. She didn't want Banger to go. He was her only connection to X, and she liked him. But he had an evil bus driver to find. His eyes had lost their glint. His sugar high had ended. He seemed to be crashing, and was sweating faintly again.
Banger had endangered himself by taking even an hour to deliver X's message-he'd put himself at the mercy of not just the Trembling but the lords. Zoe had been so obsessed with her own feelings that it hadn't occurred to her.
"Are you going to get in trouble for coming here?" she asked.
Banger shrugged.
"Yeah, maybe," he said. "But after the mess I made of my life, they can't do anything to me I don't deserve."
He stared down at his hands just for something to look at. They were calloused and bruised and held nothing.
"You know how you said you didn't judge me?" he said.
"Yeah," said Zoe.
"You should," he said. "I'm not anything like X. I wish I was."
Zoe didn't know what to say. She waited.
"You know why I stabbed that guy?" said Banger. "Because he was acting like a dipshit, and I was in a bad mood." He paused. "My whole life was a bad mood."
Zoe didn't want to hear any more.
"You don't have to talk about this," she said.
"I want to," Banger said. "After I killed him, I emptied the cash register and bolted. Never spoke to my wife or daughter again-because what would I say?" Again, he paused. "My daughter was autistic. She had this thing where you couldn't hug her. It just, like, overloaded her system. She'd totally freak out. She'd be eight now. Probably has no idea if I'm alive or dead." Banger looked away. "So, anyway, yeah-you can judge me."
It was Zoe's turn to look at her hands.
"Are you sorry?" she managed.
"God, yes," said Banger. He pulled off his hat, revealing again the catastrophic bruises that he'd inflicted on himself. "Have you met my forehead?"
Zoe frowned-seeing his forehead the second time was no easier than the first.
"Being sorry's got to count for something," she said.
"Does it?" said Banger, as he pulled his hat back on. "I'm not so sure. It's pretty easy to say you're sorry-especially once you get caught."
Zoe asked him if he ever thought of trying to visit his wife and daughter while he was out of the Lowlands.
"I'm too ashamed," he said. "I've had a lot of time to think deep thoughts, and here's the thing: you can't do what I did to my family and expect them to forgive you. Hearts are fragile-the good ones, at least. Best thing would be if they decided I was just a bad dream."
Banger stood, wincing as he unfolded his long limbs. Zoe followed him to the door. The candy in his pockets creaked and crunched with every step.
Outside, the wind was blowing the snow around. After the warm, humid air inside Piping Hot Springs, it came as a shock to the skin. There was a lamp above the door. Banger stood in the small cone of light, as if it would warm him. He rubbed his bare arms, and squinted into the distance.
"You can't go running around Montana without a coat," said Zoe.
"What's it gonna do-kill me?" said Banger.
Zoe groaned at the joke. She went inside and retrieved X's overcoat. She held it open for Banger.
"You serious?" he said, slipping his arms into the sleeves before she could change her mind. "You are the bomb diggity."
Zoe rolled her eyes-but fondly. There was no way this guy had ever kept up with slang.
"Will you tell X I love him?" she said. "And will you give him some of the candy?"
"I'll tell him you love him," said Banger, "but no way can he have my candy."
He stepped out of the light, and onto the snow.
"No matter what happens with you and X," he said, "I'm glad he ran into you. He's a good dude-and you've given him a little bit of a life."
"Do you think the lords will really set him free?" said Zoe. "Be honest, I can handle it. No, wait-don't be honest. I can't handle it." She released a long, tired breath. "The odds aren't very good, huh?" she said.
Banger was just a voice in the darkness now.
"Who cares about odds?" he said. "What were the odds that he'd ever meet somebody like you?"
part four
A Divided Heart
fifteen
One more soul.
The words shouted in X's brain.
He turned on his side in his cell. Despite Ripper's nursing, his wounds weren't entirely healed, and they cried out as they scraped the ground. He didn't care. He lived in his mind now. His body existed only to prop it up.
One. More. Soul.
He could only see Zoe again if he brought the lords a final bounty. He thought of the Overworld-of the hunters with their necklaces of geese, of the cannibals who wore skulls on a rope. How many could you wear before the weight of the dead pulled you to the ground?
He would snatch their soul for them. Of course he would. All that troubled him was how simple it sounded. He turned the phrase "one more soul" over and over in his head. He searched for the trapdoor hidden between the words. What if they required an innocent man? What if they demanded a child? He was consumed with seeing Zoe. Thinking of her, thinking of Jonah-even thinking of their mother who had grown cold toward him-sent a bolt of anguish through him. Still, there were things he would not do, even if the lords commanded him. It was not that he was too noble. He wasn't. It was that he didn't want to disappoint Zoe. She would not want horrors committed in her name.
X decided that he himself was the only true danger. When Regent-it was too perilous to even think of him as Tariq-sent him to the Overworld to hunt the last soul, would he run to Zoe instead? Would he enrage the lords and obliterate his single hope for happiness? Could he stop himself? Even now, he could feel Zoe's fingers on three very particular places: his lips, his hips, his shoulders. He shivered, as if she were in the cell with him, wrapped around him like a vine and breathing onto his neck. How could it be that the thing that made him strong also brought him to his knees?
A sudden noise interrupted X's thoughts. The Russian guard was escorting someone down the corridor. X heard a voice say, "Chillax. It's not like I forgot where my friggin' cell is, dude."
It was Banger.
X leaped to his feet. He had to know if his friend had seen Zoe, as he had asked him to-had begged him to, really. It was all he could do not to scream the question in front of the Russian. He held his tongue. He waited for the men to come into view. The guard strode in front. Rather than his usual powder-blue tracksuit, he wore a shining cherry-red one. He was so towering and wide-and strutted so proudly in his new finery-that X could barely see Banger behind him. But there he was. And he too was dressed in some new garment. It was so deeply blue it was nearly black.
X did not recognize it for a moment.
Then it struck him.
It was his own overcoat-Banger had seen Zoe.
The guard thrust his key into the cell next door. He waited for Banger to catch up, idly snorting up phlegm and then swallowing it.
Banger shuffled into his cell. X craned his neck, desperate to catch his eye, but the Russian blocked his view. X cursed silently. He was about to withdraw into his own cell when Banger leaned back out and looked directly at X. He flipped up the collar of the coat-and winked.
The Russian loitered for ages. Mostly, he paraded manfully back and forth in front of Ripper, who took a perverse pleasure in flirting with him.
"You have noticed new suit, yes?" said the guard.
"Oh, I have indeed," said Ripper. "You cut a dashing figure. You will be the talk of the Lowlands!"