“Haven’t seen you in a while,” Mia said. “What mysterious things have you been up to?”

“Too mysterious to recount,” Evan said.

She took him in more closely, her forehead twisting with concern.

Peter tugged at Mia’s sleeve. “Can he come over for dinner tonight instead of Ted?”

Ted?

“Can he? Mom—can he?”

Mia colored. “No, honey.” Then, to Evan, “He’s a … friend.”

Evan gave another nod, took another step toward the safety of the elevator doors.

“Then can he go trick-or-treating with us?”

“Peter, I’m sure Mr. Smoak has better—”

“I’m gonna shoot horse thieves and bad guys. You should totally come.”

The toy gun was out of the holster, and Evan was staring at it, a hard edge of discomfort rising inside him, something he was unaccustomed to feeling in the floral-scented lobby of Castle Heights. “I can’t—”

“What did you dress up as when you were a kid?”

“I didn’t … I didn’t really celebrate Halloween.”

“Why not?”

Evan was eight hours from his last dose of Advil, the pain starting to cramp his peripheral vision. “Don’t aim that gun at me.”

His voice startled all three of them.

Peter lowered the toy gun. “You don’t have to be mean.”

“I wasn’t being mean.”

“Yes,” Peter said. “You were.”

Mia slung an arm over Peter’s shoulder. “C’mon, sweetheart. Let’s get you some candy.”

They withdrew. Evan stood a moment before turning to the elevators.

By the time he got upstairs, the headache had crept down into his neck, meeting the fiery nerve lines shooting up from his shoulder. He went straight to the kitchen, tugged open the freezer drawer of his Sub-Zero, and assessed his options. A single bottle of Stolichnaya Elit remained. Triple-distilled, the vodka was purified through a freeze-filtration process that dropped its temperature to zero degrees to eliminate the impurities. He wasn’t sure his arm could inflict the abuse he generally put a martini shaker through, so he poured two fingers over ice, palmed a trio of Advil, and took a sip.

As crisp as it was clear. It struck him that his vodka indulgence was something like a purification ceremony. After all the blood and filth he’d waded through, he didn’t drink to numb his senses. He drank to try to cleanse himself from the inside out.

He pressed the frozen bottle to his shoulder. It stung. He let it.

Leaning on the poured concrete of the center island, he glanced across at his vertical garden, the wall textured with herbs and plants. The mint was taking over, as it did. This wall, the sole splash of green amid the metals and grays, was his one stab at living with life. The attempt struck him as poignant and pathetic at the same time.

I wanted you to get out. I wanted you to have a chance.

At what?

At a life! That isn’t this.