A protest broke out at the foot of the SPK building three days after Mello had lured Mogi Kanichi inside. Protestors congregated at the square, their banners held high.
It wasn't a coincidence. The SPK was hidden inside a 50-storey building, sandwiched between tax companies and law firms. They weren't visible unless you knew where to look.
The timing was convenient.
Mello shook his head, lifting his binoculars to his face as he watched from above. Not his circus, not his monkeys.
Kira was using his zombies today. Mindless droves, all trying to impress their juvenile God. They trickled out from the subway stations and parked cars, moving towards the front doors with masks and bandanas.
They didn't stop. They kept coming.
The square filled, packing against the SPK building like writhing maggots, pushing up to the front door.
Mello frowned. The people were multiplying. The streets clogged, stopping traffic. The loud, bellowing engine of a low-flying plane pulled Mello's eyes up to the sky.
Three helicopters were circulating the building, like flies to shit. A booming voice ricocheted off the glass buildings. We have discovered our enemy hideout! The SPK have been hiding in this building!
It was no protest. It was a raid, performed by an army of thousands. There was no way Near could make it out of that alive.
Mello's phone buzzed over his desk. He reached backwards, flipping the cover open with a flick of his wrist, and held it to his ear. "Talk to me."
"What the fuck is going on?" Matt's voice came in from the other end.
Mello frowned, remembering Matt was outside. He didn't think he'd be caught in the center of the chaos. "Where are you?"
"I'm trying to get back in," Matt responded, grumbling over the speaker. The megaphone echoed over his end of the call. Mello's binocular combed through the crowd, seeking him. "The hotel is swarmed."
There he was. A head of dark reddish hair, moving in the opposite direction of the crowd. Matt slipped between two parked cars, pacing quickly.
"Find a place to hide," Mello told him.
Matt rolled his eyes. "Working on it."
Mello followed his figure along the sidewalk, watching as someone barrelled into his shoulder, pushing him back. Matt flipped him off, shaking his head and hunching over, and sidled through the crowd quickly, farther along the road.
There was an opening only a few feet away. Mello said, "Turn left."
"Left?"
"Left. Now."
Matt turned obediently, pushed along against the crowd of people before he emerged on the other side of the stream. It was at the entrance of a bank. People were standing around, hiding behind the columns where security guards had guns.
He was safer here.
Matt slipped behind an empty column, shaking his head. "Jesus Christ," he grumbled as he pulled a cigarette out of his pocket. "Where the fuck are you? You can see me?"
"Yes," Mello replied. Matt lit his cigarette, his hand shielding the flame. "Stay there. Don't move."
"What is going on?"
The crowd filtered around the column. It didn't stop growing, heading towards the SPK doors, up the stairs of the building. At the front doors, there was a crush forming.
"It's a raid," Mello answered. Matt had a finger plugging his other ear as the noise grew louder over his receiver.
"No shit. On Near?"
"I think so."
"You think Kira did this?"
Mello quirked a brow. "Maybe."
Matt frowned as the noise got louder. He yelled. "I can't—"
Boom.
Mello looked over at the noise. Dusty smoke billowed against the glass windows of the SPK, black and thick. The site of the crush.
Matt's voice was panicked. "What was that?"
Screaming. People were running. The crowd let up and flowed back to the other end of the street, tiny heads bobbling for dear life.
Over the call, someone cried, "It's Al Qaeda!"
"Mello," Matt repeated, urgently. "What's going on?"
Lights flashed down the street. Sirens wailed.
"Mello?"
"They bombed the front door," Mello answered, watching as the rioters tore down the entrance.
"Are they gonna take down the whole building?"
"Maybe."
"And kill Near and Mogi and everyone?"
"… Maybe."
Another scream. The crowd was moving and pointing their fingers to the sky. At the column, Matt tossed his head back and looked up, the wind whipping through his hair.
"Holy fucking shit," he said.
Mello followed his line of sight. The sky was blue and bright, and something was falling. Bits and pieces showered into the crowd like confetti from halfway up the building.
It billowed out from the office window steadily.
Mello squinted. "Is that—"
"That's—"
It was money.
The crowd screamed. They reversed. People were falling. They were running.
Everybody wanted the money.
Mello refocused on the column to find Matt, but he wasn't there anymore. Throngs of people replaced him, moving shoulder-to-shoulder toward the square.
"Matt," Mello called out, his binoculars scanning through the crowd. "I lost you. Where are you? Matt?"
The noise was too loud on the phone. Screams and shouts and helicopter blades. Mello couldn't hear him. He couldn't see him.
Suddenly, the call went dead.
Mello frowned, his binoculars still roving. There were too many heads. There was no space to move. People climbed fire hydrants and jumped around. Kira supporters, regular citizens, tourists and workers alike.
It was chaos. He redialed Matt's phone number.
A gunshot resounded. Packs screamed. Behind his hotel room door, footsteps charged down the hallway and into the elevator. Shouts of excitement, like there was a party downstairs to attend.
Mello couldn't see a way out of the crowd. Matt was gone.
The call didn't go through.
Mello redialled, staring out the window as his breaths came faster.
Call failed. Please try again.
Redial.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Shit. Mello hurled his phone onto the carpet, storming away from the window.
If Matt lost his cell phone, that meant he lost their eavesdropper, too. If the wrong person found it, they were both fucking dead.
"Ow! Watch it!"
Someone kept pushing Matt along the Great Wave off Lower Manhattan until he was stumbling down steps and crashing into people's backs.
People were going insane for a little bit of cash. Pushing and shoving and knocking elbows and crashing knees, and Matt was getting winded and punched over and over again.
Somebody knocked into his mouth and almost knocked a tooth out with it.
"Fuck you!"
Matt slapped his hand over his mouth, cradling his jaw. He was in the mosh pit of the writhing New York City worms, worse than New Years' Eve at Times Square, and he couldn't breathe. Everybody smelled awful, everybody was pushing.
It was like Club Escape all over again, but this time, people were angrier. Vicious. Putting their hands up in the air to grab a little fifty dollar bill.
Well, Matt didn't want any fucking money. He just wanted to get out to see another day.
The cops were here. He could hear the sirens and smell the tear gas. People were dispersing and running and fuck — Matt was getting closer to the square, closer to the looming SPK building, even though he didn't want to be.
Matt shoved his hands in his pockets and ducked, pushing his elbows out, getting a few people in the ribs. People were yelling, calling him a fucking cunt, but he ignored them and turned his body around as much as he could.
Back in his Club Escape mode. Fuck it. He was going in.
Or out.
He pushed through, swimming upstream. People let him through easily, dodging him. Their eyes were on the money. They didn't give a fuck about anybody who was trying to get out.
Matt pushed and shoved, bumped and jabbed, poked and kneed his way back to somewhere where he could breathe.
Pushing. Pushing. Pushing. Was this what being born was like?
He was in the crowd's uterus for what seemed like hours under the sunny heat before suddenly, he saw the light at the end of the vag.
A bubble of space, over the row of heads.
He turned, pushing through to it. The street narrowed as he crossed over just as down the street, and more people started screaming. More bangs and more helicopters. A shot rang through the sky.
Matt was not going to be a stillbirth, goddamnit.
The crowd popped him out the side of Nick Street, right near the subway entrance. People were running up and down in zombie hoards on the subway stairs, but there was a pocket of space in the middle of the road.
When he got closer, he realized why.
A middle-aged man was bleeding out on the street, blood staining his button-up shirt, barely breathing. A teenaged girl was holding a crumpled tissue to his chest, wiping at his blood desperately.
"Somebody help," she sobbed. A mound of tissues sat balled up beside her, soaked in red.
The crowd watched like they were tuning in for the grand finale of a soap opera, mumbles of shock and dismay. Matt took a deep breath and looked away, edging along the perimeter of the crowd.
He palmed his back pocket for his phone to call Mello again now that he was somewhere where the crowd had thinned.
There was nothing in his pockets.
What?
Matt looked down, his heart sinking. He dug his hand in deeper, trying to find it. Maybe it was tucked in too deep. Sometimes that happened.
The pocket was empty.
"Shit," he grumbled, patting himself down. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck."
He tried the right side, he tried the front two, he tried his vest pocket, he tried the inside of his boot, he tried digging up his ass.
Nada. Zilch. No tengo.
"Fuck," he groaned. Maybe he didn't check enough. Maybe it was buried in one of his pockets and he just needed to empty them out to see.
Shit, he needed to find someplace to stop, with enough room to look through his stuff. If there was any place where there was enough room for him to…
Matt looked up over the moving crowd, scanning the storefronts. A pizza place stood with multicolor flags flapping in the wind, but the inside was packed to the brim, with a lineup of people on the sidewalk looking through the windows. Another shoestore was across the street, but it was packed like a mosh pit.
A flower shop down the street looked promising.
Matt moved. The window glinted.
Somebody had smashed all the glass and looted everything. Flowers. Why the fuck did anybody want to steal flowers?
Then, farther down the street, Matt saw a sleek black office building with a glowing salon on the first floor. He couldn't see inside, but the windows were intact, and there looked like there was a waiting area that was completely empty.
There. That one.
If it wasn't closed or locked, he could go there.
Matt pushed through the crowd, wading through baby carriages and little children and college students towards the salon entrance. He was surprised when he pulled the handle of the heavy glass doors and it actually gave way. For some reason, this place was actually safe.
When the door swung shut behind him, slapping him flat across the ass, Matt understood.
He felt like he'd walked into an alternate dimension. Older, rich-looking white women lined the shiny black floors, sitting on fold-out couches like an elaborate set. Asian ladies sat by their feet, scrubbing their toes and painting their toenails. All over the walls were stippled artworks of old Hollywood icons. Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor.
Matt looked around. Some of the white ladies looked over and stared, leaning over to whisper to each other at the sight of him.
"Good afternoon," a girl at the front desk greeted, her ice blonde hair tied back into a tight ponytail. "Do you have an appointment with us today, sir?"
"What?" Matt looked back and frowned. Then he remembered his purpose again. "No. Gimme a few seconds. I need to find my phone."
"I'm sorry sir, but we're not taking any walk-ins today—"
Matt shook his head, ignoring her as he walked over to the black seats in the waiting area. She was still talking, but he blocked her out, bending over to lay his pants' contents out in front of him.
He still had his wallet. Thank God for Hot Topic wallet chains. He had his lighter, his pack of cigarettes, his car keys, a crumpled receipt, a few pennies and quarters, and another receipt. In his vest was his heroin — oh, shit, he should put that back — and a plastic lollipop wrapper —
"Sir, please," the girl said, rounding the corner with her black pants swishing, her heels clicking and clacking. "We're currently open for customers only."
"Hold on," Matt answered quickly, patting his thighs down.
"I'll have to ask you to leave."
"Give me a second." He unzipped his vest, feeling the inside of the collar. Any inner pockets?
"Sir—"
"Just let me find my phone," he snapped, shaking his pockets.
"Please—"
"Just let me find my phone," he repeated. "Let me find my phone."
"I can't—"
"Just let me find my phone. Let me find my phone. Let me find my phone!"
His voice echoed over the shiny tiles, rising to an uncomfortable volume. The whole salon fell quiet.
The girl took a few careful steps back towards the front desk, and Matt pulled his pockets inside out, feeling around again.
Lint. Dust. Some tobacco. No fucking phone.
Shit, Matt really fucked up this time.
"Oh fuck," Matt breathed, staring at the dismal, dirty-looking collection of things lined up on the leather couch. "Fucking fuck fuck, where could it—"
"Sir," the girl said calmly.
Matt looked up, glancing back at the front desk. The girl had the landline phone cradled to her ear now, her mascara-lined blue eyes staring at him wide, like she wouldn't even blink to let him out of her sight. "You are disturbing our clientele," she said coldly.
Matt straightened, putting up his hands. "Hey, hey. Do you know what's going on outside?"
She glared. "If you don't leave right now, I'll call security."
Matt glanced at the ladies behind them in the pedicure area staring at him openly, their powdered, wrinkly faces shocked. Then his eyes drifted over to the phone again, the girl's magenta nails holding onto the receiver tightly.
"Okay. I'm going, I'm going," Matt said slowly, biting his lip. "But… can I just borrow your phone real quick?"
The girl responded by leaning towards the receiver. She said, "Security."
Matt shook his head, picking up the last of his shit and shoving them back into his pockets. "I'm gone. I'm gone. I'm gone."
She stared at him, still holding the phone to her face. "Hello, can I get security out here? There's a suspicious—"
Matt heaved the doors back open, and ended back on the street. People still gathered around the storefronts, multiplying on the sidewalks, but now, an ambulance had arrived at the intersection. There were more people crowding around the shooting. A stretcher was moving into the back of a van. More police sirens were wailing down the street.
Matt shook his head and gave himself another pat-down, still hoping to find his phone hidden somewhere that he forgot to check or that he just missed. In the fur lining of his vest. In his boot. Accidentally wedged between his sock and his foot.
Somewhere.
Someone was saying something. Matt was bending it like Beckham to find his goddamned cell. Come on, he couldn't fucking lose it. Mello was going to murder him. He was going to lynch him and hang him up to bleed him out. Mello was going to chop him up into little pieces and feed him to stray mafia dogs.
And, most importantly, Matt really couldn't afford to buy another fucking phone right now.
"Hey," someone said again.
Matt looked up. "Huh?"
An athletic-looking kid about Matt's age stood in front of him, dark hair slicked back with pomade. "I think you dropped this," he said, something pinched between his fingers. "Is this yours?"
Matt's heart picked up in hope as he looked over to see what the guy was holding. To his disappointment, it was only a card of some sort, thin and shiny. Matt pursed his lips, slumping. "No, that's not—"
A car drove past. It darkened the reflection off of the plastic, casting a shadow over the words. Suddenly Matt could read what was written over it: Centurion Hotel. Enjoy a meal at the C&D Lounge!
"Oh shit," Matt said, ducking his head. "Yeah, that is mine."
Christ. That was a close fucking call.
The guy grinned, handing it back to him. "No worries, man. You dropped it here. I was waiting for you to get out."
"Thanks," Matt mumbled, sliding it into his pocket.
"You okay?"
"Hm?"
The guy pointed a finger towards his lower lip. Matt touched his own mouth reflexively, and then felt something hard and painful on his fingers.
He pulled back, looking at his hand. Dried blood. He touched it again, and felt his lip sting this time. His finger came back wet and bright red.
Fuck. Someone got his lip cut up when they elbowed him in the face.
"Hey, uh, I think I saw you at the bank, dude," the guy continued. "Near the riots."
Matt tongued his cut lip, frowning. "Yeah?" he asked, dropping his hands to his sides to feel himself up for his phone. "Really?"
"Yeah. I remember your goggles." He grinned. "I was just there cashing my checks, bro."
Matt looked down, nodding distractedly. What was that — fuck. Just a lighter.
"What you looking for?"
"Uh…" Matt pulled his hands out of his pockets in defeat. "You didn't see a phone beside the key card by any chance, did you?"
The guy pulled his thick eyebrows together in thought, scratching his stubble. "No. Don't think so."
"Shit," Matt said, shaking his head.
That was it. He was getting fucked, like it or not. Time to lay back and enjoy it, because when Mello found out, he was going to destroy him.
"That sucks, bro," the guy responded. "You wanna borrow mine?"
Matt looked at him. The dude seemed nice enough — an innocent, stupid jock type — but Matt was already in deep shit, and he didn't want to fuck anything else up and worsen the situation.
Matt shook his head. "It's fine," he answered, waving his hand. "Thanks, though."
The guy nodded, shifting his weight. "Yeah, that's cool. That's cool."
They fell silent. The ambulance peeled away, carrying the shot man and his crying daughter along with them.
Fuck it. He needed to call Mello eventually.
"But, uh," Matt spoke up, tonguing his lip. "You know where the closest phonebooth is?"
"Oh, uh... there's one, like, just a few minutes away on the J line," the guy responded. "Near Bowery and Canal."
Matt squinted. "Uh… Bowery and…?"
"It's—" the guy started pointing a muscular arm in one direction, his gold watch catching the sunlight. "Like, Chinatown."
"Huh?"
"Oh." Realization seeped into the guy's features slowly. "Oh, right. You're not from around here, dude?"
Matt shook his head.
"Where you from? LA?"
"Yeah," Matt said. "How'd you know?"
The guy laughed. "Let's Go Lakers! I was just there this summer." Then he nodded to himself, "Yeah, I got a feeling. You looked kinda west coast to me, man."
Matt smiled politely, nodding. He was Canadian and didn't watch basketball.
"Hey, well," the guy said, sobering up. "I was gonna head there anyway. Come on. Let's go together."
Matt raised a brow. "Okay… thanks," he mumbled, shoving his hands in his pockets.
The guy sauntered in the direction of the subway exit, beckoning him to follow him with a jerk of his head. He was heading straight into the epicenter of the madness, like he was trying to get them both killed.
"Hey, hey, no," Matt called out. "We gotta go this way."
The guy whirled around, making a face. "What? But the subway's this way."
"No, there's no way to get down there."
Matt pointed, and the guy looked over. The entire subway was swamped with people trying to get out, running like a continuous stream on the staircase. With the bleeding man gone, the bubble wasn't even there anymore.
They had to run before the crowd caught up to them.
The guy turned around, his eyes wide. "Oh jeez," he mumbled.
"Yeah. We're going to have to go on foot."
The guy exhaled, shaking his head. "Fine. Okay. Then let's go this way."
They hustled, heading towards the other end of Manhattan. Matt couldn't believe the amount of people that lived here.
"Hey man," Matt said, jogging to the guy's side. "What's your name?"
"Danny. You?"
Matt licked his lip. The blood tasted salty on his tongue.
"I'm Zakk," Matt answered. "Nice to meet you."
Twenty minutes of walking later, Danny brought him over to a phone booth in the lower east end. The box was just by the side of the street, the glass broken, shards of it all over the sidewalk and the tires of the cars parked next to it.
Chinatown.
The sidewalks on this end were practically the Wild West. Parked cars and baby carriages, and some tourists who clearly had no idea what was going on. Chinese supermarkets lined the identical brown brick buildings, all with paper signs on the front door written in marker. Out for a while… We'll Be Back!
"Here you go, man," Danny said, clicking his tongue. "Your phone booth. Who do you gotta call so bad, anyway? Your girl?"
Matt cringed, snorting to himself. "Fuck no. My boss."
"Uh oh."
"Yeah. I'm late to a meeting."
Danny whistled as Matt slid through the broken accordion door. He stood at the phone and waited, watching Danny stay outside staring at him.
Matt waved. "Bye," he called out, through the broken windows.
"Oh. OK." Danny waved back, nodding as he whipped around. "Bye."
He walked further west. Matt waited until his white t-shirt was out of sight before he shook his head to himself and sighed, placing a few quarters into the slot and picking up the receiver. Over the speaker, the dial tone said hello.
Matt grabbed his key card and pressed on the metal digits, cradling the receiver to his mouth as he whispered the numbers written on the plastic to himself.
Beep… Boop…. Deet… Doot….
Done. It connected. Brrrrr. Brrrrr.
A nice-sounding lady with a radio announcer voice picked up on the other end. "Centurion Hotel."
"Hi. Can I get Room 1210?"
"Guest name?"
"Huh?"
The lady rephrased. "Who is this call for?"
Matt squinted at the light blue sky on the other side of the phone booth window, tonguing his cut. Fuck, what kind of weird name did Mello go with this time? He vaguely remembered something super ordinary when Mello told him. "Uh… Joe… uh, Joe Smith?"
"Thank you. Please hold."
Matt waited as the call went through, staring at the brick buildings, at the fire escapes and the skinny spaced windows. He rubbed his busted lip idly, glancing down at his thumb to see if it was still bleeding, but his finger came back dry.
The line connected, singing and dancing in his ear. Matt watched as another police cruiser flew down the street, still tonguing his lip.
The dial tone stopped. Here went nothing.
Matt took a breath. "Hey..."
"Is this line safe?" came back Mello's stilted voice.
"Yeah," Matt answered. "I made it out alive."
"Where are you?"
"Near Chinatown."
"Chinatown?"
"Yeah. I'm using a payphone."
Mello stayed quiet, and Matt could feel his icy glare through the phone lines. Might as well just take the plunge.
"… Listen," Matt said, picking his dignity off the ground. "I lost my cell."
"I know," Mello responded coldly.
Matt took a deep breath, continuing. "There were a lot of people there, trying to get the money. Someone got shot. I just..." Matt trailed off. Another burst of police sirens shredded down east Manhattan, and Mello stayed quiet. "... dropped it."
Something shifted on the other line. More silence. Matt was fucked. He heard it in the air. Mello was going to decapitate him tonight.
Execute program: damage control.
"Look," Matt muttered. "Sorry. I didn't mean to."
No response.
"I didn't even realize I dropped it until I found a place to stop."
Still no response.
"Maybe I can try to find it again tonight," Matt continued, digging his grave deeper. "It's probably near the hotel—"
"Save it," Mello cut in. "Get us both new phones."
Matt frowned. "... Okay."
"I don't want any more fuck ups after this," Mello continued, his voice hard and stern. "Got it?"
Matt inhaled deeply, pressing his fingers against his busted lip. He felt like Mello was pulling his ear, calling him a failure. I'm not angry, just disappointed, and all the worst things that his mother used to say.
God, Matt really was a bitch to be this afraid of pissing Mello off.
"Okay," Matt mumbled to the quiet line, licking the blood away from his lip as it pooled over. "Yeah, I got it."
Mello hung up briskly, leaving Matt with nothing but silence.
The hotel room lock whirred. Matt was back. He shimmied through the door, a white plastic bag hooked around his wrist.
"About time," Mello said, looking over from the TV. "I dumped the phone. There was too much of a—Jesus Christ, what happened to you?"
Matt looked up, his bangs falling over his goggles. His face was covered in bruises. A dark one on his jaw, another red mark over his cheekbone. A scab at the side of his mouth sliced his lip.
"Bar brawl," Matt mumbled, wiping his scab as he walked in. The door slammed shut behind him and he flipped the latch into place. "You should see the other guy."
Mello looked away, exhaling through his mouth. "It's late," he said.
"Tell that to the NYPD," Matt grumbled, his heavy boots thumping over the carpets as he tossed the bag to the table beside the television set. "The police had this entire area fucking blocked off. I needed to bribe a cop to get let back in."
Mello bit his tongue, staring back at the screen.
He'd been waiting for hours. The NPA made no movements outside of their hotel room. The SPK had escaped the riots safely, and caution tape papered the front entrance of the building.
Nobody was allowed in or out.
Without his phone, Mello was stranded. He lost contact with Hal. He was unable to move. He was unable to keep tabs on Matt.
All because Matt dropped his phone in the fucking raid.
"What you watching?" Matt asked, feigning normalcy. "CSI?"
Mello looked over. Matt was staring at the television screen, a pack of cigarettes clasped in his hand, his lighter tucked between two fingers.
"Miami," Mello replied.
Matt tilted his head, watching for a few seconds. "Yeah. I saw this one. The dad kidnapped the baby to sell to the Mexicans."
Mello jerked his head disinterestedly, glancing at the plastic bag on the table.
"I got the new phones," Matt continued. "You need me to install another bug?"
"No," Mello said coldly. "I don't want this to happen again."
Matt blinked, an unlit cigarette dangling between his lips. Something like annoyance flitted over his features as he nodded. "Okay."
"I want you to find another way to intercept calls remotely," Mello continued, crossing his legs as he leaned back on his hands. "Something more secure."
"Yeah, yeah," Matt replied. His cigarette bounced over his words as he walked back to his bed. "I'll find a way."
"Tonight."
Matt glanced back, frowning. "What?"
"I need you to set up my phone tonight," Mello said, looking over. "I need to call the SPK."
Their eyes met. Matt was staring at him, about to say something. Mello could see it about to leave his lips, curled around the filter of his cigarette. Irritation.
Matt swallowed at the last moment, and a question came out instead. "The SPK got out alive?"
Mello nodded.
Matt cocked his head as he unzipped his corduroy vest and tossed it onto the bedspread. Mello looked away, watching as the dramatic background music of CSI swelled to a climax, cars rushing along the streets of Miami.
The lighter clicked on finally. The smell of cigarette smoke wafted to Mello's end of the hotel room, and Matt ambled back over to the table beside the television, his figure cutting through the image onscreen.
He unfolded the phone's cardboard box, crinkling the plastic casing as he pinched the new cell phone between his fingers. He rummaged into the bag again, trying to find something else inside, and Mello spoke up.
"What did I say about fingerprints?" he asked.
Matt looked back with a spark of annoyance, the corners of his lips frowning. "Fine," Matt replied. "Christ. Calm down."
"I am calm," Mello shot back.
Matt didn't respond. He walked back to his duffel bag to grab a pair of gloves. He swiped the memo pad off of the desk as he walked past it, holding it in his clunky hands as he stomped back to the TV.
Mello looked away. He heard the scribble of something on the piece of paper, and then a rip as Matt tore it off the memo pad.
Neither of them spoke again until Matt finished setting up.
"There," Matt said, leaning back against the table as he flipped the new phone open. "With a new SIM card. Untapped."
The cell phone screen glowed against Matt's bruised face, lighting it pale blue. "Oh," Matt said, laughing to himself. "Fully charged, too."
"Leave it here," Mello responded, gesturing to spot on the bed.
Matt slipped a sheet of paper in the keypad and flipped the cell phone shut, tossing it onto the bed. He walked back to his own bed after he was done, adding, "I wrote down your new number, by the way."
Mello nodded, glancing down at the phone, the paper sticking out under the red shell cover. He'd have to find a way to deal with the other phone still, but this was good enough for now.
"You still need me?" Matt asked.
Mello shook his head.
Matt ambled back over to the mini-bar, descending into a crouch. Mello watched as Matt hoisted an ice bucket from the shelf, the tin clattering against the wood. "What are you doing?"
Matt looked back, resting his elbows over his knees. "To get some ice."
"Why?"
Matt pointed to his bruises blankly as he stood up, holding onto the handle of the bucket.
"Fine," Mello allowed begrudgingly. "Be quick."
Matt walked out to the hallway. He unlocked the door and opened the hatch, leaving the room.
The door slammed shut.
Mello flipped the phone open and unfolded it with one hand, reading Matt's handwriting. The seven digits were easy enough to memorize. He sat up, leaning over to Matt's bed to grab his lighter.
He burned the memo. The corner of the piece of paper curled from the heat, the numbers charring into black. Mello let the fire burn through half of the numbers before he blew the flame out.
The scent of burnt paper hung heavy in the air as he flipped the cell phone open, staring at the empty screen.
Mello's new phone looked almost exactly like his old one. He pressed the Menu button on his keypad and opened his empty phonebook. Create a new contact. In the text field, Mello keyed in Hal's cell phone number and saved it under "H."
Mello pressed the green call button after he was finished, lifting it to his ear. The phone rang quietly, the dial tone thrumming. Mello leaned back on his hands as he waited for the connect.
The ringing stopped. "Hal, it's—"
Hal's voice overlapped with his on the other end. "You've reached Hal's voicemail. I'm not available right—"
Mello tsked, rolling his eyes.
"—leave a message with your phone number after the beep."
Beep.
"Hal," Mello started. "It's me. I had to get a new phone. The number is…"
A knock on the door interrupted him. Mello looked up, frowning. Did the idiot forget to bring his key card?
He glanced back at Matt's bed, where he'd left all of his belongings — his car keys, his smokes, his video games — but the hotel card wasn't there.
"I'll call you back," he finished, flipping his cell phone shut.
They had company.
There was another knock as Mello flipped onto his front on the bed and climbed towards the headboard. He threw the pillow aside to the floor and grabbed his Beretta from underneath the cotton, sitting up to slide back the hammer.
He yanked open the shelf of the bedside table, the force of his pull making his belongings shake. His heart was pounding.
"Front desk," a deep voice called out from outside the door. It wasn't Matt.
Mello grabbed a magazine from the shelf and slid it into the butt. He cocked the gun. The zip ties came next, slipped into his boot.
He took the sunglasses off of the surface of the table and slid them over his face. There was another knock on the door, and he whipped his head around.
"Front desk. We had a complaint from downstairs, and—"
Mello slid off the bed with the gun firmly in his hand and walked over slowly, quietly. Knock knock.
He reached the door and pressed himself against the wood to peer through the peephole. A man with dark hair and a suit stood on the other side, waiting.
Mello had never seen him in his life.
Mello flipped the safety of his gun as he put his hand carefully on the knob. He twisted it and pulled the door open with a quiet creak.