#WitchcraftWednesday || ONC 2023 | ✔

Chapter 3: Subway Struggles

Though Nathan prefers the subway to driving in Morales, the A Line poses its own challenges. Nathan rides it often enough to know the line is serviced by multiple subway trains, with most of those being perfectly decent; they provide the basic levels of comfort one expects from public transportation, only loud idiots and the occasional spillage of food making for a nasty trip. But the A line has one subway train that—despite looking squeaky-clean—inexplicably smells like piss.

Because Nathan's a lucky guy, he surmises he finds himself riding the piss train at least eighty-five percent of the time. Today is no exception. If he were religious, he'd think God is testing him.

But it is what it is. He can't do anything about the stench, but he can at least create some peace for himself by sitting in a car in the very back of the subway, one containing comparatively few people. He shares this space with a probable centenarian struggling his way through a crossword puzzle, a suited man engrossed in the music filtering through his earphones, and a middle-aged woman with a grocery bag staring off into space.

It isn't completely quiet: there's also a college student-looking girl complaining into her phone about her cheating ex-boyfriend. This noisy anomaly doesn't bother Nathan much, though, because it's free entertainment. He's going to get weirdly invested in this stranger's life right until her call ends, blatant eavesdropping that doesn't embarass him at all. He'd rather think about other people's problems than his own.

At least nobody here seems to recognise him. It's the little things.

While listening to how College Girl invited her now-ex over for a stern talk, Nathan sits and thinks about #WitchcraftWednesday and visibility and hiding in plain sight. Having his jacket's hood pulled over his head helps, as he feels people pay less attention to him now. His hood hides most of his messy blond hair, his most important identifier; his face itself is plain and forgettable, his eyes the dullest kind of grey. Unless someone here were to study him from up close, they're unlikely to notice he's the nameless dude from that viral video. He may be experiencing a long fifteen minutes of fame, but he's still not exactly the new Beyoncé.

"Nathan. We thought we saw you here."

Hold on a minute.

Nathan knows this voice. He concludes his jacket's hood may protect him from strangers, but not from acquaintances. Acquaintances he decidedly doesn't want to talk to. Irritation bubbles up inside him, and not only because he's being interrupted right while College Girl gets to the juicy part of her story where she throws a desk chair at her ex's unsuspecting head. It's also because the speaker's voice reeks of treachery.

Eva Booker is a woman Nathan would recognise anywhere. She works directly for Nathan's supplier, who believes actually delivering drugs to his street boys is beneath him and happily sends his personal assistants to do it. Eva has brought Nathan his wares consistently and dutifully for years now, which renders them on good terms in Nathan's book.

Well... Rendered. She talked about Life-Ruiner, even though he told her to zip it, and he's been dealing with the fallout of that since yesterday. Maybe Eva is the one he should be calling Life-Ruiner.

With her brown hair permanently in a messy updo, her eyelashes so caked with mascara it looks like she walked straight out of an emo scene music clip, and her mismatched earrings—green alien on the left, blue shark on the right—Eva is quite the apparition. The person behind her, however, commands Nathan's attention more. Though Eva is a decently normal person, one he liked well enough until yesterday, he can't say the same for her twin brother, whose presence Nathan has never been able to stand.