And there he stood again. He did it unconsciously, or perhaps he thought he was one piece with a background, but Josten froze again, his head raised to the light, as if drowning sailor at the beacon of a lighthouse. He made no sound, didn't move, but his entire posture was filled with something pleading, even prayerful, as if he were appealing to a higher powers. Anger stirred in Minyard's veins. Because of the medication, it doesn’t feel like an unlit match tossed into a gas tank. No, it was like a dull erupt that instantly lifts a stone slabs and reverberates from head to toe, testing the strength of the boulders once again. In the dim light of the locker room, no one noticed how his neck tensed as he tried to hold back the wave, the momentum, which is raising his fist. Neil Josten included. He still stood there, his face exposed to the sun's rays, not relaxed, but not scared either, not quite in the locker room, but not quite outside. Half-here half-there. Why he had such an expression - Minyard didn't know. He thought Neil had realized long ago that asking anyone for anything is a waste of air, but there he was, standing there like a silly goose, begging the sky for something with just a glance of his absurdly dyed eyes. His hair was a mess—why did "Today I'm Josten" even think his mane, torn with office scissors, wouldn't be conspicuous? We don't live in the middle of nowhere. In an age of rapid consumption, it's much easier to trade in a pair of cheap, worn-out jeans for another than to wear until they're ruined, forcing people around to think for more than a few seconds every time you see them. For a fugitive like him, it's a deadly game. Neil himself paid stupidly little attention to the appearance; to him, they were nothing more than a collection of dangerous and safe features, like a cluster of road signs along the path he ran. Hares probably don't care about the quality of other animals' fur either; they care more about it not being gray. But somehow, he'd lived to his age. And now he stands, wrapped in a fox pelt, and Andrew feels something prickle between the tectonic plates, like a razor blade cutting under his skin: unnoticeable if you hold still, but immediately crunching with every movement. Just to think —so many people meticulously cut out Minyard's sense organs with the fervor of surgeons on an anatomical table, so many chemicals injected into his carcass, making him resemble a fresh broiler, and yet he still twitches whenever some shabby hare feels a sip of freedom. "Damn you all, you big-eared devils," he thought, absently counting the rest of the Colombian family. "How I hate you all."
Neil, as if sensing a shudder beneath his skin, turned around. A soft beam of light from the side washed away his lenses, turning his eyes into a soft, rainy sky. Andrew's neck trembled, and he turned away, halfheartedly gesturing toward the exit. Josten shrugged and trudged toward the parking lot. The moment had passed, but the razor in heart remained.
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