He should be that lucky.
The next time he looked for me I was nearly on top of him. Barely three feet away I could smell the fear coming off of him. I could also smell determination and resolve or maybe I was seeing it in his dark eyes. I was so focused on him, so ferociously aware, that I couldn't tell where one of my senses began and the other ended. The same went for my sanity and something a little less than. He'd taken my friend. He had taken the first person I'd learned to trust aside from my brother.
Months ago I'd been on the edge of losing it utterly when I'd thought George and Niko were gone for good. Robin had told me then that the frozen control I'd used simply to be able to function would come back to bite me in the ass. Told me that when you bury emotions like that, you're only pissing them off … making them stronger, because you're burying them alive. They don't like that, and one day they'll make sure that you don't like it either. He'd been right. But against the odds and my own screwed-up psyche, I had found George and Niko.
I'd never find Robin again.
But I'd found his killer. Right here. Right now. And restraint and composure, they were just words to me. Meaningless sounds, worthless concepts.
I've felt savage rage. What I felt now was beyond that. When he jumped down to the tracks and took off down the tunnel, I was with him. On him. I saw only him, felt only him when I tackled him. I didn't feel the thud of the ground rising to meet us, him twisting beneath me or the fists that hammered my ribs. I didn't feel the gun that I had in my hand either, but I know he did. The matte black steel dug into the flesh under his chin until a small rivulet of blood welled around the gunsight and wound down to pool in the hollow of his throat. And because I could see only him, I could see the rapid pulse beating beneath the red with startling clarity. There was the blood rich with copper, sweat sour with dread, and breath heated and harsh.
"What you do to me doesn't matter. My task is done," he panted. Somehow, outside of his fear, the bastard had found satisfaction. "The betrayer is dead."
I should've pulled the trigger. The clean jerk of it, the kick of the recoil, I wanted that. But I also wanted something else. "Are you the only one I get to kill?" I asked, the question leaden and guttural in my throat. I jammed the gun barrel harder into his neck until he gagged against the pressure. "Are you? Or is there someone else? Die hard and alone or easy and with company. Which is it going to be, you son of a bitch?"
He spat in my face, contorted his body, and shoved me off in a move that I'd not seen before, not even from Niko. I staggered as he lunged upward, but I managed to stay on my feet as I aimed the Eagle at his chest from six feet away. "No, not yet," I said more to myself than to him. "Not that easy for you." I lowered the muzzle to point at his knee. If I fired, he'd be an instant amputee, but he'd tell me whether he was in this alone. That was worth a leg to find out. He was dead anyway. He could bunny-hop his way through the Gates of Hell, for all I cared, and think of me while he did it.
"You can't make me tell you anything." He was a study in contradiction. Afraid, but proud. A murderer, but so fucking naïve.
"Think again, asshole." I gave a feral grin. "I can make you do anything. Anything. All I need is time." I pulled the trigger, and it felt as good as I knew it would. "You don't have anywhere you need to be, right?" I finished as the echoing boom of the round faded away.
His scream was slower to wane. He should've been grateful. He still had his leg. I'd used my left hand to throw my combat knife. I wasn't as good with my left as my right, but I was good enough and good enough was all it took. Half the blade buried itself in his thigh. The gunshot and crater in the far wall a few inches over had been for emphasis; there's nothing quite like an explosive round for highlighting the six inches of steel in your body. There's nothing quite like it for emphasizing any damn thing you can think of.
The cops would be coming but good luck getting through the panicked crowd that that explosion would have milling like wild animals. It would take a while and a while was longer than I needed. We were far down the tunnel and I was motivated. Very motivated.
I watched as he fell to his knees, his hands finding and locking on to the rubber handle. Looking up at me, he swallowed the last of his harsh cry and his mouth worked soundlessly before he mumbled something too slurred to understand.
"Ican't make you tell me anything, is that what you said?" I stepped forward, put my hand over his tightly clenched ones. "It's serrated, so very sorry about that. But don't worry. It'll be just like pulling off a Band-Aid." I leaned in and offered a mockery of sympathy. "I'm happy to do it for you. But if I were you, I'd try not to look at what comes out with it."
"My task is done," he repeated, my words ignored. The fear was gone; there was nothing to smell but the remnants of it now. "I will be remembered."
The tracks beneath us began to vibrate, followed by a brilliant light cutting through the shadows. Piss-poor timing—I lived for it. Or, rather, it lived for me.
"I will be honored." He managed to get to his feet and stepped back, using an untapped and desperate energy to pull his hands and the hilt from my grip. He took two more steps, looked down and back, then took that one last step. He rested his left foot on the third rail without hesitation. Immediately, his body arched before snapping back so rigidly upright and with a force so anatomically impossible that I thought I heard his back break. I also smelled the cooking of flesh and the stench of burning hair, but only for a second. I flung myself back against the wall as the train took him. After that there was only the sharp scent of ozone, empty space, and a hundred wildly raging emotions with nowhere to go.
I slid down against the concrete wall until I was sitting, the gun still in my hand. He'd beaten me to it. The bastard had gone out his own way and without telling me a damn thing.
"Shit." I pulled up my knees and rested my forehead on them. "Sorry," I rasped roughly, "so goddamn sorry." The curse was for me, the rest for Robin.
"Did you kill him?"
Niko would've quickly realized that he'd assigned himself the wrong direction when the milling of the crowds and the yelling and screams started from the opposite end. My end. He'd caught up with me, but not in time.
"No." I straightened and leaned my head back. "A million volts and a train beat me to it."
"Dead is dead," he said with a dark satisfaction as he held down a hand to me. "And that, little brother, is quite thoroughly dead."
I shook my head and didn't take the offered hand. He was right. Dead was dead, but it wasn't enough. "Robin's gone." I looked blindly at the smoking rail. "That stupid, horny piece of shit is …" I dropped the gun beside me and rubbed hard at my forehead with the heels of one hand. I couldn't say the word. I picked the Eagle back up, threw it across the tunnel with as much force as I could muster, and didn't bother to care when nothing blew up from the careless tantrum. "In the back. Jesus, he got it in the goddamn back. He's supposed to be better than that. Smarter than that."
"He told us so often enough, didn't he?" Nik sat beside me. To keep it out of his eyes, he'd drawn the top half of his jaw-length hair back tightly and secured it just below the crown with a black rubber band. But without the weight of his braid to pull the rest of it straight, the damp bottom half that fell free had dried with a subtle wave where he had pushed it back behind his ears. That wave must've been there for months now, and I hadn't noticed. It seemed important, my blindness; it seemed almost momentous, because Niko was my brother. My brother, and I hadn't noticed. I couldn't begin to grasp the things I'd not taken the time to notice about Robin.