By the time he’d made his way back here with the car, the cops had already canvassed the area to speak with witnesses. So he didn’t have the immediate concern that any more authorities would stroll by asking questions. By now, Tobias’s death had been informally deemed a suicide anyway, and with suspicion gone, no eyes were cast his way. Along Yorkshire Way the amount of media traffic flowing in and out was doing well to hide his presence in close proximity to Ethan.
Watching Ethan wrestle with his grief over their ‘uncle’s’ death filled Blake with an emotion he couldn’t describe, knowing what he knew now. And strange as it was, he felt angry that he, as Ethan, hadn’t been able to adequately grieve. Even that had been taken away from him. Everything was gone, decided by people other than him. Even though he’d made the choice to jump, he hadn’t done it of his own free will, not really. The cycle had already been set for him. He was just playing his part.
Sudden bitterness filled him. Ethan, suck it up and head home already! He was exhausted and just wanted to get some sleep, even if it was in the back seat of the car.
Half an hour later, Ethan managed to pry himself away from staring at Tobias’s estate and walked to his Mustang, collapsing in the seat. He sat for a moment longer, seeming to try to collect himself, then pulled away and waved to the cop on duty in a nearby car.
Tailing Ethan was a tedious journey; Blake had forgotten how out of it he’d been at the time. Ethan crawled along just under the speed limit and kept sitting at intersections. After the third time it happened, Blake picked up on something new. There was another vehicle following Ethan home, a black two door roadster, its frame cruising low to the street.
Ethan’s Mustang took a right into the underground parking garage and the roadster slowed, then headed down an alley at the next intersection. Blake followed, closing the distance between their cars and cutting off his headlights, even though the occupant — or occupants — of the car would know they’d been followed as soon as he pulled in behind them. After all, that was the point … shake up the timeline, right?
The brake lights of the other vehicle lit up and Blake stomped on his own pedal, slamming the Toyota into park. He opened the door as three men hopped out of their vehicle in front of him.
Blake had his gun ready, but held the end of it above the headlight switch. It was up to them to make the next move; he wouldn’t fire unless they initiated. “Hold it right there!” he barked.
The hum of traffic on the street around them didn’t hush the noise of slides being pulled and rounds entering chambers. Blake flicked on the headlight switch with his pistol, casting all three men in a glaring light. When they flung their arms up to shield their eyes, he slid out of the car, using his door for cover, and took aim to shoot.
It was difficult to fire with only the use of one arm — the kick of the gun caused his aim to move far off mark with every shot — but after six quick blasts, at least three found meat. The harsh noise of the gunfire bounced off the alley walls. Blake’s ears rang from the abuse; second time that day. If the frequency of these shootouts continued, he’d be deaf soon.
Moving around the open car door, Blake walked toward the men who were now all lying on the ground. The first two were dead. The last was crawling across the rough pavement on his belly, trying to get to a gun that had fallen in the skirmish.
“Stop,” Blake said, but the man kept scooting forward.
One kick to the man’s ribs, and he curled up, grunting in agony, and let out a hiss of air. Blood bubbled out from a stomach wound. “What the fuck?” he said in one wheezing gust of breath.
“Why are you following my friend?”
“We was told to. We wasn’t going to do nothing, just report back.”
The man was lying and dying. Death would be slow, so Blake knew he could still pick him for information. He looked back to the main street. No one had come to check out the loud gunfire yet.
No good Samaritans left in New York. Despite the unwanted difficulty it would have created for one to happen by just then, this was the sort of thing that had been eating at Blake for a while now, even in his other life.
So many times on the force he’d seen horrible things happen to people just because no one wanted to get involved. That kid in the neighboring apartment screaming from the abuse he suffered at the hands of a drunken parent? Let’s just ignore it, pretend we don’t hear anything. And on it went.
Why save humanity when humanity didn’t even want to save itself? It was ugly but true. Was this world even worth saving?
The sound of clothes scuffing against the pavement brought him back in time to see a glint of metal in the downed man’s hands. It sliced at his leg, digging into his right calf. On instinct, Blake kicked out, nailing the man on the chin. Blood spurted across the ground as skin split under the assault, but the man did not lose consciousness.
Without the steadying effect of another arm, Blake’s reflexive kick caught him off balance. Mr. Gut Shot took advantage of this and swung one of his legs sideways, dropping Blake to the ground. His advantage was now lost. He felt two hands grip onto his neck, but with only one arm, he was unable to fend off the attack; just as he managed to pry one hand away and go for the second, the first would return. The man’s grip kept finding its mark, and the constriction was taking a toll on Blake’s air intake. He attempted right jabs to the attacker’s midsection, but lying on his back gave his arm little force and only furthered his loss of strength.
His face was pushed back and he lost all leverage with his head. He bent his injured leg, groping blindly down his calf until he touched the hilt of the knife still embedded in the muscle. He barely felt the pain as he tore the blade from his flesh and drove it between his attacker’s ribs.
The man’s grip on Blake released, and Blake saw his opening. He yanked the blade out, put it against the man’s neck, and sliced open the jugular and vocal chords in one clean, swift movement. Blood cascaded down on Blake’s face as the man’s body jerked. A gasping sound escaped his severed windpipe, and he collapsed on top of Blake, lifeless.
Blake pushed the weight off him and sat up, staring at the corpse. The lights from the Toyota gave him a clear view of his foe; a Latino, sporting an ugly Zapata mustache. Then Blake saw the hideous tattoo on his neck — the seven with the crown perched above.
He scrabbled away from the body, staring in shock at the dead man’s empty eyes. Art’s voice rang out in his head, “Throat was slit … In a back alley near your apartment. Two of his buddies had a set of gunshot wounds as well.”
Shit, that’s Alejandro Cortez — AKA Smiley!
Holy fucking fuck! Every decision he made was still sculpting the timeline, pushing him on an already driven path to the ultimate end: getting sent back to 1948, only to repeat all of the same mistakes.
A distant siren blared, drawing closer. Blake used the bumper of Smiley’s car to hoist himself to his feet and hobbled to the Toyota. He needed to patch the leg wound up soon. And from this point on, he had to measure the next move he made with precision.
It could easily be his last.
The ideas that floated in his brain plagued him like a cancer. Blake couldn’t help but think that more members of Los Siete Reyes were going to converge on Ethan. He remembered this was the night that he drank himself into a coma.
It was always easy to sneak past Donnie Yeats and bypass the elevator, but taking the stairs was not so easy. He’d bound up his calf with an extra shirt from his duffel after moving the Toyota away from the blood-soaked alley, but the burn from each step ascended felt like alcohol being poured into the wound.