Section 2 was like someone had taken everything I knew about cities and cranked it up to eleven. Clean streets stretched out in every direction, buildings stood tall and proud like they'd never heard of collapse, and the air—well, the air still tasted fake, but I couldn't see addicts or rats rummaging across the streets, so that was good.
I walked down the street, blood-covered and scaled, the fangs in my palms retracting into my body, the blood drying up against my skin, making me wonder if there would be wells here to wash off like in Section 3. The weird part? Nobody cared. Like, at all. People passed by, their heat signatures bright and healthy, barely sparing me a glance. Either Section 2 had really low standards for street fashion, or this wasn't the strangest thing they'd seen today.
Then the smells hit me.
You know how a really good meal can make your mouth water? Well this was like that, but a million times better.
Every person who passed carried a unique scent—some human, boring, whatever. But others? Others smelled intoxicating. Like beasts.
My nostrils flared, taking in more of those intoxicating scents. They smelled even better than the snake I had eaten. My hunger grew with each new scent, building from a gentle nudge to a full-on mosh pit in my stomach.
"Calm down," I muttered to myself, trying to ignore the way my fangs were itching to make an appearance. "Don't eat people, don't eat people, don't eat people."
That's when I saw her for the second time—a flash of movement on a rooftop, gone so fast I might have missed it if not for my enhanced vision. A figure, female, chocolate skin and those blue eyes of hers, it was the girl.
She appeared again, three buildings down, perched on a ledge like gravity was more of a suggestion than a law. She raised one finger, beckoning, then vanished in a blur of movement.
A sound cut through the streets, loud and blaring. I looked towards where the sound was coming from, strange posts with boxes up top. I had never seen those before, not even ruins of them in Section 3.
"10 PM CURFEW. LIGHTS OUT," the mechanical voice announced, echoing of the buildings and across the streets.
People started moving faster, heading indoors, but I stayed put. My enhanced vision didn't need the artificial light anyway. Every surface, every movement, every heat signature stood out in perfect clarity. I looked as the lights of the lamps started shutting off one by one, I was perplexed how were they controlling the light, then I saw her.
There she was again, two blocks down, that same beckoning gesture. This time, I moved.
I ran. Not the careful, measured pace of someone trying to be stealthy, but full-on sprinting like my life depended on it. My enhanced body moved with impossible speed, each step carrying me further than it should have. I turned the corner, nearly taking out a lamppost in the process, only to catch another glimpse of her disappearing around the next bend.
"Oh, so that's how we're playing it," I muttered, pushing myself faster.
The chase led me deeper into Section 2, past buildings that grew taller and more imposing with each block. My new senses were working overtime, tracking her heat signature, picking up the faint vibrations of her footsteps, catching traces of a scent that made my hunger stir uncomfortably.
She led me through a maze of alleys, across empty plazas, and up the sides of buildings. Yes, up.
At one point, she stopped on top of a massive glass building, her silhouette clear against the darkening sky. I pulled myself up onto the roof, ready to finally confront her, only to watch her step backward off the edge with a wink.
"You've got to be kidding me, how is she so fast," I groaned, but I was already moving to follow, jumping of the building along with her.
The chase continued through what looked like a market district, all shuttered stalls and empty squares. My hunger was getting worse with each passing minute, the exertion making it harder to ignore the delicious scents all around me. I could smell other beast-touched individuals nearby, in all honesty, if I went by my smell around half of everybody I had sensed had the smell of a beast.
She led me through a series of increasingly narrow alleys, each turn bringing us deeper into what felt like the heart of Section 2. Tall buildings, with different signs and banners hanging from every door.
Finally, just when I was starting to wonder if this chase would end up leading me all the way to Section 1, she stopped. We reached an alley, buildings that seemed to lean inward at both sides, like they were trying to eavesdrop on whatever was about to happen.
"Welcome to Section 2, Devourer."
I cocked my head to the side, probably looking like a confused puppy. A very dangerous, scaled, formerly-snake puppy. "Devourer? Is that supposed to mean something? Because I gotta tell you, if it's about the snake thing, that was a one-time deal. Mostly. I think."
Her smile widened, showing those too-sharp teeth again. She reached into a bag at her side and pulled out... oh gods. The smell hit me before I could even process what I was seeing. Raw meat, fresh and bloody, the kind of thing that the addicts in Section 3 would literally kill themselves for, the type of thing that James had prohibited.
"You must be starving after such a long run," she said, tossing it to me with casual grace. "We always are after our first consumption."
I caught it without thinking, my hands moving on pure instinct. The hunger roared to life, drowning out everything else. I tore into the meat like I hadn't just eaten an entire 10 meter long snake a few hours ago. Blood ran down my chin, chunks of flesh disappeared between my suddenly very sharp teeth, and I couldn't have cared less about table manners if you'd paid me.
When I finished, I licked my fingers clean, the hunger finally settling into something manageable. "That was... thanks." Real smooth, Aell. Very eloquent.
"Wanna come to my league?" she asked, her smile growing impossibly wider. She pointed up, and I followed her gesture to a sign hanging from one of the buildings.
It was like someone had taken every childhood monster story and crammed it into one shield-shaped design. A snake (hey, I knew that one personally now), a dragon breathing what looked like actual fire, an angel that definitely wasn't the friendly kind, a mammoth that could probably step on houses for fun, and a ghost that made me want to check over my shoulder.
Each creature had its own colored section, like the world's most threatening rainbow. And at the top, in letters that somehow managed to look both inviting and vaguely threatening: "League of Intrigue."
"League of Intrigue?" I repeated, raising an eyebrow. "Not exactly selling it with the name there."
She laughed, a sound that carried both warmth and danger. "Hey, I had to make it rhyme, things aren't cool if they don't rhyme. Besides that's not the point, the point is that I need Devourers." She gestured at my scaled arms. "Like you."
I looked at the sign again, then back at her. "And what exactly does this league do? Besides having questionable taste in names?"
"Not much really," she said simply. "We go out and hunt, capture some beasts for the city. And," her eyes glinted with something that made my hunger stir, "we eat very, very well."
The hunger rumbled its approval, like a pet being offered its favorite treat. I looked at my hands, still covered in scales and blood, then up at the sign again. A snake among monsters. Maybe that's what I was now.
"Well," I said, matching her predatory smile with one of my own, "when you put it like that, how can I refuse?"
Yet as I talked with the girl, I thought of something, my thoughts were becoming sarcastic again.
But I still felt almost nothing about the death of Tommy, or my family's grief. I wondered what had happened to my empathy. Was it just because I had spent a year as a snake, I honestly didn't know and for some reason I didn't want to figure it out.