For as long as he could remember Adam looked both ways at all times.  He could not remember a time where he had not had to keep his wits about him on the streets of Neverwhere.  He had overheard in conversations that the city was in a world, which he did not sense to him.  The city was his whole world, and the concept was beyond him, but he knew Neverwhere was special.  The city streets were his home and he had grown up seeing angels, devils and everything in between.  

Neverwhere was not a safe place.  All people were subject to death at any given moment.  Danger lived in every doorway, dark street and even the sky.  To survive, one had to develop a sixth sense and Adam had a good one.

His best guess was that he was ten years old, but the streets aged him.  He was tall for his age, but thin because meals were infrequent and usually not nutritious.  He worked hard to fade into the background but could stand up for himself with those his size.  Adam definitely knew when to run.  It was the only way to survive big dangers.  Most of all, he knew the streets like the back of his hand.  It was what allowed him to survive when he ran for his life.

He knew that you could not trust people.  Even the angels had an agenda.  The devils were more straightforward and the people that ran afoul of them were easy to spot in the gutter.

Even those he ran with in the streets trying to find food had to be taken with a grain of salt.  He had history with them, and they still could stab you in the back for the promise of a better crust of bread.

He found out that straight forward theft usually led to a bad end.  He had lost a few of his loose association of street folks to that bad choice.  Adam ran chores with trusted people and even then, you could not trust that anything could be consistent.  He found that food was the most important thing.  You have that and then you could keep moving.  A place to sleep that was somewhat safe was like gold.  When you were not trying to find that next meal, you were searching for a place where you could sleep a few hours. Adam never told people where he slept.  Even those you were close to would sell you out for a few coins.  It was not personal.  They were trying to survive as well.

A new set of clothes or bathing were a luxury.  He had found cold water splashed in the gutter was about the best he could find to keep the filth to a minimum.  He had found recently that the cleaner you looked the better the work you were able to pull.

The closest thing to regular work was running messages.  This work was fraught with danger but paid better than other work.  One of his circles found relative success by becoming an assassin for one of the many bosses.  No one suspects a child or sees them until it is too late.  He had met a brutal end when one too many people put the pieces together.  Another lesson learned.

Predators did not always come from the monsters, but the people too.  Although Adam didn’t understand the mechanics of sex he knew it had a power.  People with power tended to want sex, or use sex as part of the power.  Some of the circle were pulled into that with no say in the matter.  If they looked good and did not move fast they disappeared.  Sometimes it did not matter if they looked bad.  The machine that was the town ground everyone up.  

As careful as Adam was, he was still noticed. One of his routes was to run messages directly from club to club.  This route was one where it was the best to take the direct path.  Adam had learned from the others to take a different route each time to allow no one to learn from your patterns.  Now that he was getting taller he found it harder to hide when things went wrong.  Not a good camouflage.  The assigned run he had this time was easy because the buildings were located only a few blocks from one another, but sharp eyes watched him.