Am I a hero?
His leg was already half way numb, lying in the mud while the rainwater continued to drench him through. His breathing was starting to run shallow, and the almost hollow feeling had started to spread.
Harris kicked his gun away with a casual, practiced motion, leaving Billy with nothing to defend himself with, even if he could do more than wiggle his fingers. He'd already lost a lot of blood.
Dead man walking sounded like a very fair assessment.
"I remember you, Mr. Riggs," Harris told him, his cold eyes suddenly burning with anger. "I laid out a perfectly beautiful plan that brought you to the end of your usefulness, and yet here you are. It's frighteningly impolite, you understand. I'm not altogether happy about it. Now, Clarissa-"
He was interrupted by a shout from Clarissa, "did you kill her?!" she demanded, dropping to her knees on the ground beside Billy so that she could look him in the eye. "Did you shoot Jess? She was good, she was smart; she didn't deserve to be killed like this. Did you do it?"
Billy attempted to form words, but found it difficult while his heart had already started to work overtime. Frantic, Clarissa didn't give him a second. She grasped his shirt in her hands and shook him, pulling him from the mud with a squelch before dropping him straight back in it.
"Tell me!" she shouted.
"Yes," said Billy, forcing the word through a haze of pain. He didn't try to say anymore, he just wanted to make her stop.
As luck would have it, she did. Ignoring the mess on her hands, Clarissa brought them both to her face to cover her mouth. She looked horrified. "I hate you," she told him, shaking her head to herself, "I hate you more than anything I've ever hated. How could you kill Jess? She was a beautiful woman, outside and in. She was a perfect person. She didn't deserve this. She didn't."
"Listen to me," Billy tried, but it took too long to say the words.
"Well, you should hate him now," Harris instructed, his lips right against Clarissa's ear as they both looked down on Billy. "It's not his fault, is it? He's the enemy. He's been programmed by the world to kill that which he decides the world should do without. Some of the most evil men have been made so by the ease of corruption in his position. I've told you time and again, you are too young to make decisions like this. You don't get to offer somebody life, not when I say otherwise. Sometimes, people have to die. Jess didn't, but you made sure she had to because you left the loaded gun there and ready."
As he spoke, Clarissa unravelled, breaking down and crying so hard that Billy could feel the droplets hitting his face. Harris knew the words to say. He knew how to torture and punish this girl who looked up to him like a father.
"You did this to yourself, and you did this to me," he continued. "You killed your nearest and dearest, and you killed my wife."
In a moment, he had said the wrong thing. Her eyes went as cold as his, though he wasn't there to see it. "Your wife?" she began through gritted teeth. Her hands had moved to the ground, next to Billy. One of them had taken hold of his own, as if she cared. "You hated her. She wasn't a person to you; she was a device. I got older, I wasn't always ignorant of what you used her for. She loved you, even before you pissed about with her brain. You took advantage, like you do everybody else. Everybody who died here died because of you, and because I didn't stop you."
For a moment, Harris bared his own teeth, like a wolf asserting dominance, but she ignored him in favour of speaking to Billy. "And they all died from your gun, which I let you do too. We're all murderers. Every one of us. None of us deserve to still be here while Jess is dead. She would never have done anything bad to anybody without being forced to."
Harris rose up to full height, revealing that the hand he had on Clarissa's back still gripped his gun. He held it close against the side of her head, pushing it against her hair. Again, she ignored it. "Yes," he confirmed for her. "We are all murderers. Even you. Now, I'm going to give you one chance to redeem yourself. All you have to do is shoot him, finish him off. In so many ways, you'd be doing him a favour so sweet and helpful. Death is the only logical conclusion to life. They all balance out. Some people have to lie, which you have always known. You would so gladly sacrifice your own family. You so desperately begged me to kill your father, but now a policeman who killed Jess is going to go free and survive."
He vanished from Billy's view for a moment, but was back very quickly, forcing a filthy handgun into Clarissa's hands, then standing up straight and pointing his own very clearly at her face. She acknowledged his threat with an upward glance, through fearful eyes, then took a firm grip on her weapon and pointed it towards Billy's chest.
"I had a friend once," Billy began, panicking and shaking more and more.
"Don't listen," commanded Harris, "just shoot him and have done with it, then we can be gone before any more unfortunate incidents occur."
"His name was Danny, Danny Morgan. He wasn't a saint. He liked to skip work because he was hung-over, he'd kissed girls who weren't his wife and one time I swear he came into work on Ecstacy, but whenever I saw him with his kids, he was wonderful. Those kids loved him. Every weekend he'd take the family out somewhere and use all his wages just to make sure they had a good time."
"Why do you think any of this matters Detective?" Harris snarled.
I've never been a hero before, not even once, to anybody.
"I can't see it anymore, can you?" asked Billy, looking directly into Clarissa's eyes. She obviously didn't follow him, and her wobbling aim did not inspire confidence in survival. "Under the police car," he continued, his voice losing more strength than he ever thought he had. "You know what I mean?"
Clarissa looked up, and saw that which Billy thankfully could see no longer. The arm of Danny Morgan dangling out from underneath the mangled wreckage that he had driven here.
"So many people have died," Billy attempted to continue.
"Enough of this!" Harris shouted at Clarissa. Already, more sirens were beginning to sound. The explosion had been anything but subtle. More than one car was coming this time, a great amount in fact, by the sounds of it, and only Clarissa and Harris were left to defend their position. "Do it now or I will, and then you'll both die. No games, no fancy word play. I am sick of you being disobedient and out of control. You will do as you're told!"
"I can't!"
"You will and you-"
"Oi, Pigf--ker!" yelled Billy.
Harris literally yelled in fury and twisted his weapon towards Billy.
"Enough!"
Clarissa shifted her body to block the incoming shot, responding finally by pointing her own gun at his heart at point blank range and shooting straight through his chest. Harris yelped, dropping the only clean gun into the mud beside Billy. Harris didn't spare a breath, falling forwards on to Clarissa as though hugging her. His open eyes over her shoulder, Harris, in death, was looking straight at Billy.
"We're all murderers," repeated Clarissa. She brought a hand up to Harris' scruffy hair and began to stroke it carefully.
I don't think I'll ever be a hero, even if I live through all of this.
Billy closed his eyes, concentrated on his breathing. Clarissa didn't move, even while the sirens came louder and louder. A gun was sandwiched between the two of them. All was silent for a matter of moments, before there was another shot. Billy heard a thud beside him, but didn't dare to open his eyes.
"Over here, over here!" came a voice he recognised, but couldn't put a name to. "It's Riggs. He's...oh god."
"I'm alive," Billy tried to shout, but it didn't come out as anything more than a whisper.
But somebody had heard him. the ground shook underneath him as somebody dropped down beside him and, more gently than he had felt in a long time, somebody put their soft hands on his cheeks.
"Tell me you're alive," Sophie ordered him. "Tell me you're alive and well, and that you've lost very little blood. Tell me you're not going to die."
We're all murderers. We all had to die.
Billy felt completely numb. Rain water had practically filled the wound in his leg, accompanied only by a fat helping of mud. If that didn't get infected it would be incredible. Nevertheless, there was a certain lightness of spirit now that his heart was beginning to slow down. He opened his eyes to see Sophie, crying just as Clarissa had been, but for different reasons.
"You're alive," she said, as though this, again, was an order.
His eyes going a little cloudy, Billy smiled. "Am I a hero?" he asked her. "I've never been a hero before, not even once, to anybody. I don't think I'll ever be a hero, even if I live through all of this. We're all murderers. We all had to die."
She bowed her head to his, kissing him as though her own life was the one depending on it. "You're a hero Billy, and we're going to make sure everybody knows it. The ambulance is here, you're going to be absolutely fine. I don't care about explanations, or anything else. You did what you had to do, and the neighbours have camera phones showing some of what went on. Can you believe it? Right out in the garden, and they caught everything. Everybody's going to know you're a hero. Now you just relax. You just relax and let me handle everything."
"Everything's yours."
He closed his eyes again and relaxed. His lungs emptied out with him and his heart joined it in still and perfect silence. He was a hero now, his body could just relax and be still.
The End
I was a little worried this was gonna drag on for a while, but in the part before this, I felt like it was gonna wrap up and now that it has, it couldn't have ended at a better time.
I loved the story. So many great elements.
The first few chapters were a big mindfcuk, and the rest were pretty action-filled, while not skimping out on the storyline.
Enjoyed it thoroughly from start to finish.