It was easy to find Kavinsky. The white Mitsubishi seemingly glowed in the moonlight and its driver was perched on the hood, head tilted back, cackling at the sky. His familiar band of deviants were circled around the car as if they were bodyguards. Perhaps they were. Declan knew their names, but couldn't match them to a face—they all sort of blurred together and moved as one organism.

As Declan walked up, hands in his pockets, shoulders slouched, trying to appear smaller, nonthreatening, one of them wolf whistled.

Kavinsky's head rolled forward at the noise, his grin sharp and lethal. "Fuck me!" his voice still on the edge of a laugh. "This wasn't the Lynch I was hoping for, but I can't complain."

"Joe." A greeting. A test. Where was his baseline at?

"Since when are we on a first name basis, sweetheart?" Kavinsky turned to spat in the dirt and slid off the hood of his car. He lazily stalked to stand in front of Declan, a few steps back so he didn't have to look up with the five inches between them. He drew up his sunglasses to the top of his head, pupils blown, whites mottled red. "To what do I owe the fucking pleasure?"

"I heard you got Carnegie a fake," Declan kept his voice smooth and level. "Was wondering if you would—"

"Yeouch! What the hell happened to your face?" Kavinsky squinted at him, taking in the kaleidoscope of blacks and purples. The bruise had bloomed deeper since his encounter with the man in gray that morning. "What's the other guy look like, huh? He got the same eyes and nose and shit? The same DNA?"

Declan grimaced, jaw tight. He swallowed, allowed K and his group their laughter, and then, very quietly, his voice unwavering, without room for discussion, he said, "I don't want to talk about Ronan."

Kavinsky's smile slowly slid away, replaced by a look of disappointment. Declan would remain in control of this conversation or he was leaving. He did not want to talk about Ronan and so they would not.