Chapter 5: FIRST BLOOD — Part 2
The gun kicked in my hands.
The first shot went high and left—adrenaline, tremors, a grip that should have been steadier. It caught the guard in the shoulder instead of the chest. He spun like a drunk dancer, blood spraying in an arc across the sedan's hood.
The second shot missed entirely. Punched through the car door with a sound like someone hitting a drum.
"Fuck—"
The other guard was faster than I expected. He had his weapon clear before I could adjust aim—compact pistol, Russian make, pointed at my center mass.
I threw myself sideways.
His shot cracked past my ear. Close enough to feel the heat. Close enough to leave my hearing ringing.
I hit the ground, rolled, came up firing. Three rounds in rapid succession. The first two went wide. The third found his sternum.
He dropped like a puppet with cut strings.
Yuri was running.
The loan shark had abandoned all pretense of dignity. He was sprinting toward his car, keys clutched in one meaty fist, mouth open in a scream I couldn't hear over the ringing in my ears.
I ran after him.
Fifteen feet. Ten. Five.
He got the door open. Started to slide inside.
I slammed into him from behind. We hit the car together, my weight driving him into the frame. The keys flew from his hand and skittered under the vehicle.
"Please—"
He twisted in my grip, trying to face me. Fat hands clawing at my jacket.
"Please, I have money. I can pay—"
I shoved him against the car. His head cracked against the window. Not hard enough to break the glass. Hard enough to stun him.
"Пожалуйста, не надо—"
Russian now. The language of his childhood, maybe. The words you reached for when death came calling.
I put the gun to his temple.
His eyes found mine. Wide. Wet. The gold tooth invisible now behind trembling lips.
"Pull the trigger. Just pull the trigger."
My finger wouldn't move.
I'd killed before. In Fallujah. In the Korengal Valley. Men who were trying to kill me, men whose faces I never saw clearly, men who became statistics in after-action reports.
This was different. This was a man looking at me, begging me, waiting for me to decide if he lived or died.
"He's a loan shark," I told myself. "He hurts people. He probably deserves this."
But did he? What did I actually know about Yuri Petrov beyond what the System had downloaded into my brain?
The brand on my arm flared hot.
[TARGET CONFIRMED. EXECUTE.]
Something cold slithered through my nervous system. Not pain. Not fear. Something else. Something that didn't belong to me.
My finger tightened on the trigger.
"Wait—"
The gun fired.
Yuri Petrov's head snapped sideways. Blood and worse painted the car window. His body slumped, slid down the door, came to rest on the pavement with his legs folded beneath him.
Dead.
I stood there. Gun still raised. Arm still extended. The ringing in my ears had shifted to a high-pitched whine.
"I killed him."
The thought felt distant. Abstract. Like something that had happened to someone else.
"The System made me kill him."
But that wasn't entirely true, was it? The System had pushed. The System had compelled. But my finger had been on the trigger. My choice had brought me here.
Motion in my peripheral vision.
The first guard—the one I'd shot in the shoulder—was crawling toward the warehouse door. Leaving a trail of blood on the concrete. His weapon lay ten feet behind him, forgotten.
I should have finished him. Clean up the witness. Protect myself.
I couldn't make myself raise the gun.
"Move. You need to move."
Sirens. Distant but approaching. Someone had heard the gunshots. Someone had called the police.
I staggered toward the alley. My legs felt like they belonged to someone else. The Glock hung loose in my grip.
The nausea hit between one step and the next.
I made it behind the dumpster before I doubled over and vomited. Bile and terror and the remnants of breakfast splashing across my shoes. My stomach heaved until there was nothing left, and then it kept heaving anyway.
The sirens grew louder.
"Run. Run, you idiot."
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. Pushed myself upright. Started moving.
The night swallowed me. Red Hook's maze of warehouses and vacant lots providing cover. I didn't run—running attracted attention—but I walked fast, head down, hands in pockets to hide the blood.
The brand on my arm had gone quiet. Satisfied.
Behind me, the sirens converged on what I'd left behind.
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