Chapter 6: THE AFTERMATH
The subway car was empty except for a drunk asleep at the far end and a woman in scrubs who didn't look up from her phone.
Neither of them noticed the blood on my jacket. Or if they did, they didn't care. This was New York. You learned to look away.
I changed trains twice. Doubled back once. Standard counter-surveillance, the kind they taught in SERE training. Probably overkill. Probably paranoid.
But the wounded guard had seen my face.
The thought circled my brain like a shark. He'd looked right at me before I shot him. Clear line of sight. Good lighting. If he survived—and shoulder wounds weren't usually fatal—he could describe me to the police. To his associates. To anyone who asked.
"Sloppy. Fucking sloppy."
I should have killed him. One more bullet. One less witness.
But I couldn't. Not then. Not with Yuri's blood still wet on my hands and the vomit taste still burning my throat.
The train rattled through the darkness. My reflection stared back from the window—a stranger's face splattered with another man's death.
I got off at the wrong stop deliberately, walked three blocks in the wrong direction, then cut through an alley to reach my building from the opposite side. The basement entrance was propped open with a brick, same as always. Either the super was lazy or the tenants liked their privacy.
Either way, it saved me from the security cameras in the lobby.
My hands left red prints on the railing as I climbed. I noticed but couldn't make myself care.
The apartment door took three tries with the key. The tremors had spread from my hands to my whole body now. I was vibrating, shaking apart atom by atom.
I made it two steps inside before my legs gave out.
The floor was cold. Hard. I lay there staring at the ceiling and its constellation of water stains.
[CONTRACT COMPLETE.]
The System's voice sliced through the static in my head.
[TARGET: YURI PETROV. DESIGNATION: BRONZE.]
[BASE REWARD: 100 BLOOD COINS.]
[PENALTY: WITNESS LEFT ALIVE. -25 BLOOD COINS.]
[NET GAIN: 75 BLOOD COINS.]
I laughed. The sound came out wrong—too high, too sharp, edging toward hysteria.
Seventy-five points. That's what a man's life was worth. Seventy-five imaginary coins in a system I didn't understand, controlled by a voice I couldn't see, for purposes I couldn't comprehend.
"You're losing it," I told myself. "Get up. Clean up. Think."
It took three attempts to make my legs work. I used the wall for support, left more bloody handprints on the peeling wallpaper, eventually made it to the bathroom.
The mirror showed a monster.
Blood on my face—spray pattern, probably from the kill shot. Blood in my hair. Blood crusted in the stubble on my jaw. The eyes staring back at me were wild, pupils blown wide, the eyes of a man who'd crossed a line he could never uncross.
"Shower. Now."
I stripped mechanically. Jacket, shirt, jeans, everything into a garbage bag. The Glock went on the sink—nine rounds remaining, cylinder warm, barrel still smelling of cordite.
The water started cold and stayed cold. The building's ancient plumbing didn't believe in hot water after 8 PM. I stood under the spray anyway, watching pink swirl down the drain.
Red.
Then pink.
Then clear.
I scrubbed until my skin was raw. Used the sliver of soap twice, three times, until nothing was left but a nub smaller than my thumbnail.
The blood was gone. The feeling wasn't.
"You killed a man."
I'd known it was coming. I'd planned for it, prepared for it, told myself all the rational lies. He was a criminal. A loan shark. He probably hurt people every day.
But watching him die—watching his face go slack, watching the light leave his eyes—that was different from understanding it abstractly.
I turned off the water and stood dripping in the cold air.
[CURRENT STATUS: TIER 1 - INITIATE]
[BLOOD COINS: 75]
[DEBT MARKERS: 0]
[NEXT MARKER ISSUANCE: 6 DAYS, 14 HOURS]
"Another one. In less than a week, I'll have to do this again."
The thought should have broken me. Instead, something cold settled into my chest. Acceptance, maybe. Or the beginning of numbness.
I dried off with a towel that smelled like mildew. Found clean clothes in the garbage bag of previous owner's belongings. The jeans were loose. The shirt was too tight across the shoulders.
Better than blood-soaked.
The garbage bag of evidence sat by the door like an accusation. I needed to dispose of it properly. Not in the building's dumpster—too obvious. Not in a random trash can—DNA technology was getting better every year.
"Water," I decided. "Weight it down and sink it somewhere no one's going to look."
The Gowanus Canal. I'd passed it during my subway wanderings. Toxic enough that no one swam there, neglected enough that no one watched it. Perfect for making things disappear.
I set an alarm for 4 AM. Early enough that the streets would be empty. Late enough that anyone awake would be too tired to pay attention.
Then I sat on the edge of the bare mattress and tried to remember how to breathe.
Yuri Petrov's face kept appearing behind my eyelids. The fear in his eyes. The Russian words I didn't understand but recognized as begging. The way his head snapped sideways when the bullet entered his skull.
"He's dead because of you."
True.
"He'd still be alive if you hadn't pulled the trigger."
Also true.
"The System made you do it."
That one was harder. The System had pushed. The System had compelled. But had it controlled? Could I have resisted if I'd tried harder, if I'd been stronger, if I'd found some way to fight the cold compulsion that had slithered through my nerves?
I didn't know. I might never know.
The brand on my arm was quiet now. Just a scar. Just a mark that would never fade.
Sleep didn't come. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the blood. Heard the gunshot. Smelled the copper and cordite.
3:47 AM.
I gave up on rest and grabbed the garbage bag. The Glock went back in my waistband. Nine rounds. Not enough to feel safe. Too many to forget I was carrying.
The streets were empty. The city that never sleeps had finally passed out drunk. I walked through shadows, avoiding streetlights, a ghost in a city of millions.
The canal was exactly as toxic as I remembered. Industrial runoff and decades of neglect had turned it into something between a waterway and a chemical weapon. Perfect.
I found a spot where the bank crumbled down to the water. Stuffed rocks into the garbage bag until it was heavy enough. Swung it twice and let go.
The splash was quieter than I expected. The bag sank immediately, pulled down by the weight, swallowed by the black water.
Evidence gone. Clothes gone. Blood gone.
But the memory remained.
I walked home as the sun began to paint the eastern sky. Another day. Another chance to figure out how to survive this world.
The System pulsed once, gently, almost approvingly.
[EVIDENCE DISPOSED. RECOMMENDED: REST AND PREPARATION FOR NEXT CONTRACT.]
"Thanks for the advice," I thought bitterly.
The apartment was exactly as I'd left it. Cold. Dark. Empty.
I locked the three deadbolts, checked the windows, put the Glock under the mattress where I could reach it in the dark.
Six days until the next Marker. Six days to figure out how to do this better. Cleaner. Without witnesses. Without the shaking and the vomiting and the face that would haunt my dreams.
"You're a killer now," I told myself. "That's what you are. That's what the System made you."
The words sat heavy in my chest.
Outside, New York was waking up. Car horns and garbage trucks and the distant rumble of the subway. A city that didn't know or care about the man I'd killed, the blood I'd spilled, the deal I'd made with something I didn't understand.
I lay down on the mattress and stared at the ceiling.
The wounded guard's face joined Yuri Petrov's in my memory. Two men whose lives I'd destroyed in the space of a few violent seconds.
"Learn from it," I ordered myself. "Do better next time."
Because there would be a next time. And a time after that. And a time after that.
The System demanded blood. And I was bound to provide it.
The brand on my arm pulsed once more—gentle, patient, hungry.
Waiting for the next kill.
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