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Las Navadis appeared on the horizon, arching above the earth like a fist breaking sky.
Lit bright and gaudy as a carnival, it was a spectacle of buildings large as giants both in their spectacle and their abnormality to the landscape. Even beyond the reaches of a snaking promenade, where the city's heart beat robust as the song of traffic, a blanket of suburb hugged the perimeter of Las Navadis' border and reflected back a glimmer, as though each home possessed a shard of mirror set at just the right angle to bounce hues of indigo and saffron.
The highway thickened with their approach, enough for Kinga to ease off the gas and all the more for Clay to drink in the technicolour splendour.
They were driving into a great wall of light and sound, where hotel rooms stacked rank and file sat in celebration of glitz and debauchery, their occupants unsleeping as the city itself. It seemed that everything insisted on flashing in Las Navadis and Clay's breath soon fell in sync to the tempo. For as grand a sight as his surroundings had become, the frenzy was just as overwhelming.
Kinga watched him from the corner of her eye, turning down the volume knob of the stereo. Music had filled the space between them since the encounter with Ox, but the uneasiness of their shared silence was evident, like heat rises to the top. Clay had been comatose until the city had appeared in the distance, forcing him from an open-eyed slumber. Part of him knew this was natural. Who wouldn't be in shock after the night he had had? Deep down though, Clay was aware it wasn't just the recovery of his system that had kept him stock-still.
Clay was terrified of her. For as strange as Kinga was, nothing could have warned him for the side of her that had appeared. Kinga had stared danger in the face and laughed. Ox's pursuit had been a minor inconvenience, a bug she'd had to wipe from the windshield. Clay hadn't simply underestimated her, he'd walked straight into her claws without question.
All of these realisations ticked on a loop in his mind as he remained frozen beside her. Roused now, he shook the stiffness from his joints, rolling his shoulders to ease aches in his muscle that hadn't been there when he had first stepped inside the car. As they slowed at the traffic light of a sweeping intersection, Kinga coughed lightly, summoning his attention.
