Day 56 – Hour 014"The Man Behind the Face"
I made it half a block before I turned around.
It wasn't instinct.
It wasn't strategy.
It was something else—something older. Something deeper.
Shame, maybe.
Or loyalty.
I'd walked away like I didn't owe him more. Like we hadn't spent entire years scheming about building vending machines out of scrap or refilling old cologne bottles to sell at the market. Like we hadn't slept head to toe in the same bunk whenever his parents made too much space by sending him to me.
So I walked back.
I didn't knock this time. Just buzzed the signal again—two short, one long.
When he opened the door, I didn't wait for an invitation.
"I shouldn't have left like that," I said.
Ilin didn't respond right away. He stepped aside.
Then he locked the door behind me.
"I was hoping you'd come back," he said.
We didn't sit this time.
We stood in his narrow kitchen.
Just two kids pretending not to be afraid of the world outside.
I didn't ease into it.
"I was sent to photograph your father."
There was no flinch.
No surprise.
Just a slow exhale.
He leaned against the counter and rubbed the back of his neck.
"I figured," he said. "I've been waiting for that day."
I didn't know what I expected.
Anger? Shock? Betrayal?
But not this.
Not this calm.
This sad, quiet calm.
"He's being blackmailed," Ilin said. "Or… was."
He hesitated.
"Maybe he still is. But it doesn't look like it anymore."
I said nothing. Let him speak.
"He was never meant to be that guy," Ilin continued. "He didn't grow up with power. He didn't chase it. Someone needed a representative in the slums. Someone disposable. Someone average."
He met my eyes.
"My dad fit the bill."
That explained more than I wanted it to.
I remembered Edo from when we were young. Always standing on the edge of things, watching people more than talking to them. Always a presence, but never a threat.
"Then something changed," Ilin said. "The guy behind him—whoever was pulling the strings—disappeared. Died. Got bought. I don't know."
He shrugged.
"But the seat was still warm. And my father… sat down."
He didn't say it bitterly.
There wasn't judgment in his tone.
Only resignation.
"I think at first, he didn't have a choice. But over time, he started liking it."
I believed him.
Ilin had that kind of clarity—cold, honest, unclouded by ego.
He never pretended his father was better than he was. But he never made him a villain either.
That was the scariest part.
"You knew all this?" I asked.
"Not everything. But enough."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Would you have stayed friends with me if I had?"
I didn't answer.
Because he was probably right.
A long pause filled the room. The kind that gets heavy if you let it.
I pulled out the envelope Marco gave me. Opened it carefully. Counted out the bills.
Three hundred dollars. In fives and tens.
Not a fortune. But more than I'd ever held at once.
I split it evenly on the kitchen counter.
"I don't know how much longer I'm gonna be around," I said.
Ilin didn't interrupt.
"I don't know if the Club's testing me or recruiting me or just feeding me before they cut me open. But I do know this—" I tapped the money, "—we need to find a way out."
He looked down at the bills.
Didn't reach for them.
Didn't thank me.
Just stood still.
Processing.
Then he said, "You think it's possible?"
I shrugged.
"No. But I'm going to try anyway."
That finally broke the tension.
Ilin smiled.
For real this time.
A crooked, weary, grateful smile.
"I always liked that about you," he said.
We didn't hug.
Didn't shake hands.
Didn't need to.
We were who we were. Slum-born. Self-taught. Half-failed, half-fighting.
And maybe, just maybe, we'd still get out of this alive.