He turned to her, surprised. He wiped the perspiration from his face with the back of his hand.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Guy who drove a school bus while he was high on crack. I’ll spare you the details.”
He drifted around the lobby, inspecting every poster, every piece of furniture, and every knickknack to see what they could tell him about the years that had passed since he was yanked down to the Lowlands. Zoe wished everything in the place wasn’t so shabby and old. She asked if he wanted to see her cell phone. His eyes sprang to life. He spent ten minutes playing with the thing, then handed it back with an air of regret, saying, “I had a BlackBerry. Thing sucked.”
Zoe asked Banger if he was hungry.
“No,” he said. “Because I’m dead, if you want to get technical about it. But what are you offering?”
“I’ve got some seitan and quinoa my mom made,” said Zoe.
Banger lifted an eyebrow.
“Those aren’t real words,” he said.
“There’s also junk food in the vending machine,” said Zoe.
Now his eyes were shining.
“Are Skittles still a thing?” he said.
Zoe opened the register for cash, then she and Banger trooped downstairs. The vending machines hummed expectantly in the vacant hall. The drink machine was the only new thing in the entire building: it was the science-fiction-y kind that sends a miniature elevator up and over to retrieve your selection. Banger gazed at it in fascination. He agonized about what to buy for five minutes. Zoe found it touching. They returned to the lobby with 14 dollars’ worth of energy drinks, candy, chips, and gum.
They sat on the stone floor, the loot piled between them. The night sky had turned from blue to black. Zoe wasn’t particularly hungry. Still, she got a kick out of the way Banger devoured the candy. She leaned back on her hands and watched. Eventually, she figured, he’d get around to delivering X’s message.
“Sorry I’ve been jerking you around,” he said at last. His face was still pink from the hot pool, his mouth smeared with chocolate. “I know you want to hear about X. It’s just that I know once I tell you everything, you’re going to get bored of me and kick me out.”
“I won’t,” said Zoe softly. “I don’t have anywhere to go. I mean, my boyfriend’s in hell.”
Banger smiled mysteriously.
“Not for long, maybe,” he said.
Her heart jumped.
When Banger finally began to spill, Zoe could barely take in all the details because her brain was spinning so fast. All she wanted to hear, all she cared about in the world, was finding out whether she’d see X again.
The lords had put him on trial, Banger said. X had shouted them down—he’d questioned their authority!
Banger was shocked that X had it in him.
“I mean, the dude never even talks,” he said. “Am I right?”
“Stop it,” said Zoe defensively. “He’s shy—but he talks!”
“Oooh,” said Banger. “Somebody’s got a crush.”
Zoe blushed, but recovered quickly.
“Do not even make fun of my star-crossed supernatural love,” she said.
Banger grinned. His teeth, Zoe couldn’t help but notice, were chipped and gray.
“Anyway, X does talk now,” he said. “You must have taught him how to stand up for himself. I can already tell you’re a lot cooler than him.”
Banger poured half a bag of Skittles into his mouth—a strange decision given that he was already chewing gum. Zoe watched, weirdly mesmerized. How could he swallow the candy without swallowing the gum? She’d never seen anyone even try.
“Were you always this disgusting?” she asked him.
“Oh, much, much more so,” he said.
His mouth was grinding away like a cement mixer as he continued his story.
The trial had ended in chaos, he said. Finally, one of the lords brought X the verdict.
Here, Banger appeared to get hit with a sugar high and, at the pivotal moment in his story, went on a tangent that Zoe found excruciating.
“The lord that showed up?” he said. “Only cool lord in the whole place. We call him Regent. He treats X like a son, almost. Anyway … Sorry. Lost my train of thought.” He giggled. “Choo-choo! Choo-choo!” he said. “Train of thought—get it?”
Zoe gave him a stern look.
“Tell me what happened,” she said. “Or I will take away your candy.”
Banger opened his mouth wide to air out his tongue.
“You gotta take a chill pill,” he said.
“No one says that anymore,” said Zoe.
“Yeah, they didn’t even say it when I was alive,” said Banger. “But it’s a solid expression. Hey, is Taylor Swift still a thing? Is Chipotle still a thing?” He thought for a moment. “Is saying ‘is that a thing’ still a thing?”
Annoyed, Zoe reached forward and began pulling the candy away from him piece by piece. A Reese’s. A PowerBar. A Twix.
“Not the Twix!” said Banger. “It’s a candy bar and a cookie.”
He delivered the rest of the story in a rush:
“They told X he has to collect one more soul. If he doesn’t screw it up, if he doesn’t run crying to you or whatever—he’ll be set free. He can leave the Lowlands forever.”
Zoe listened as Banger spoke, her heart charging ahead of her.
“Forever?” she said. “I didn’t know that was even possible.”