5

I’m not sure why I remember the exact address. I was barely paying attention through all the mayhem, but it stuck through the gunshots and sprained jaws.

I have to crane my neck and shield my eyes from the setting sunlight as I stare up at the massive skeletal building. My ears ring with white noise as I glance around the barren street. Everything is still. Everything is dead.

The husk of the unborn skyscraper towers above me, like the skeleton of a gargantuan ancient beast, standing vigil for lost souls. Including itself. Including me.

Grey, I wonder, as I start to climb. Why is everything grey nowadays. The buildings, the clothes, the bit between… everything is grey. I scale up the stories almost casually, hearing snippets of conversation from the collected Swifter’s inside.

“…no idea what’s in this stuff, but it gets me running for hours…”

“…you hear about Yudarill? Poor bastard got sniped out on a supply run yesterday…”

“…this blasted Zorikan is running us down the drain. We’ll need new leadership eventually…”

So Zorikan is losing his grip on the Swifters. I couldn’t imagine anybody else leading them. I hate to praise him, but nobody is as efficient and ruthless as he is. At least, nobody that I would ever want to meet, is.

Eventually, I reach Zorikan’s floor. The thirteenth one. Dunno why he chose it, but that’s what he told me. I haul myself through what would’ve one day been a window and arrive at one of the most intriguing sights of my life.

Zorikan is slumped in a plastic chair, his limbs are lax, and his eyes are droopy, with a slight strain of drool dripping from the corner of his lips. Around him are several empty cans of beer, half a crate of unopened ones, and a half finished on nearly slipping out of his hands.

“So, King Shark gets drunk too,” I say, folding my arms.

He jolts, dropping the can, and looks violently around, searching for my still form. “Huh… Kallix… why’re you...” he trails off, wiping his chin and sitting up. “Bad hour… you came at a…”

“Yeah it seems so,” I mutter, striding forwards. I swing a solid right hook, which connects satisfyingly with his forehead, toppling the chair. He rolls backwards over himself, landing in a tangled heap of muscle and tattoo.

“Humphergurrrrr,” he blabbers.

I leap forwards, throwing all my energy into kicking his gut. If another Swifter walks in now, I’m dead.

“Hurghh,” he belches, jolting onto his elbows and knees.

Not enough power.

I charge my thigh muscles, channeling enough adrenalin into my right leg, with all the hatred I’ve got for this husk of a man, and blast it right into his abs.

Zorikan’s knocked onto his side. Ugly dark yellow vomit spews from his mouth.

“You god damn bitch!” I holler. “You attacked the freaking police HQ? What were you thinking?” I kick him again, this time aiming for the ribs, so he can’t breathe.

He recoils into a ball.

“You could’ve killed him!” I scream, my voice turning hoarse. “You could’ve killed Kaloaan!”

He pulls himself onto his knees, and I ram my palm into his throat, pushing him against the wall with enough force to crack a child’s skull.

“Why the hell would you do that! You could’ve KILLED HIM!” I holler again, squeezing tighter.

An undecipherable gasp escapes his drool sodden lips. It takes me a moment to process that he said something.

I release his neck, pulling my hand away in shock at what I’ve just done.

The leader of the Swifters, the tyrant of my recent life, cripples to the ground, erupting in a coughing fit.

“What did you say?” I ask, wiping my running nose.

He coughs up more, then hurls.

“Tell me what you said or…” I feel it in my pocket. The cool, metal shape against the fabric of my jeans. Kaloaan gave it to me the other day, when we fought. He said keep this on you, so you’ve got the edge over your foes. So that you can strike first. So that you can stay alive.

Well that’s not what I’m using it for today.

I pull the switchblade from my pocket and click it open. I kick Zorikan in the gut again, press my knee to his chest and ease the icy blade against his throat, just enough for him to feel it’s edge, but not enough to draw blood. “I should kill you right now. I swore that I would. Nothing’s freaking holding me back.” As I speak, I sound more and more like a lunatic.

There’s no fear in his eyes. They stare straight through me, but not at nothing. He’s… remembering something. Someone?

The inaudible whisper escapes his mouth again.

“God damnit what did you say!” I shout, stamping off him.

He forces himself onto his elbows and eases himself against the wall.

I crouch in front of him, staring into his pale grey eyes, the switchblade is held loosely in my fingers. “What did you say?”

He coughs, then swallows. “Dainin,” he breathes. His voice is still deep and smooth, but slurred, course and somewhat… scarred.

“Dainin?”

“Yeah. Dainin was my… friend. My best friend… if that’s something I could have.”

I blink. “Dainin was your best friend?”

“Closest thing I’ve ever had to one. Kaloaan killed him. I didn’t so much as… lay a finger on him.”

My eyes drift the cement floor between us.

“Look at me, Kallix,” he says.

I do.

“Look at me, and tell me who is the monster?”

“Shit,” I sigh, slumping down against the opposite wall. I crack open one of the beers and glug half of it down. Warm beer, one of the worst tastes in the world.

“Yeah… exactly,” Zorikan mutters, falling onto his side out of drunkenness.

A long moment of silence passes over us, like a vast white cloud. I focus on my breathing. I try to relax. The sight of him, the Shark King, lying intoxicated on his side… unnerves me, to say the least.

Once I’ve collected myself, and had enough to drink, I muster the mental state to ask a question I’d been meaning to ask for months. “Zorikan,” I call, checking if he’s fallen asleep.

He grunts. “You’re still here?”

“Yeah.”

“What is it?”

“Why is… Rieka forced to work for you.”

He jolts, as if electrocuted. “Who said that she was forced to work for me?” he asks, his words getting increasingly slurred.

“She did.”

“Oh.”

“So? Why is it?”

He gnaws on his lower lip for a while, long enough for me to think that he’s found that to be a better pastime than answering me, but eventually he speaks. “A few years ago, when I was more… young and… moral, I stumble across a rather obscene… scene.”

“An obscene scene?”

“Yes.”

“Of?”

He furrows his brow and picks at his nails as if trying to remember. “Rieka, but she was thirteen. Young… too damn young… and there was this other…” his chin falls to his chest and his eyes droop closed.

“Hey!” I call, tossing an empty can at him.

He shoots awake, hitting the back of his head on the wall. “Right, and there was with man. Big man… wait no… woman. Yes it was a woman and they were holding hands and then… the woman wasn’t there anymore…”

“She wasn’t there?”

“Gone… gone like a freaking dead leaf in the wind… or like a sliver moon between the last day of it’s cycle… anyway she wasn’t there and I saw Rieka but… not like that… not like that, no like… scared, yeah. Scared. She looked really scared. But I don’t work with little girls, no I deal with… big men. Scary men. Scary men is who I work with. Scary enemies… scary men. I don’t get scared, which is why I’m fast. I’m good. I’m good at scary men. And… then came a scary man. The big man… yes and he took her real good. Stole her pretty much. And, and, and, and, and I followed.”

“Wait, he stole her?”

“Yehhh, stole. Like a lipstick. Woman gone, girl gone, I’m gone too.”

I raise an eyebrow.

“Yes. I followed him but not because he’s… because he stole her… no, no, I followed him because he was on my list. My bad list. Got in trouble with a client of mine he did. Yes. Trouble. I recognized him so I followed him. Because he got in trouble. With this client I had. Named Spance. So then I followed him and found them. Found him and baby Rieka. His willynillybilly was way up inside her. Deep, deep, deep. Else was I to do? Killed the bastard. He deserved it I guess. I killed him. Twice, actually. She swore she’d do anything for me since then. I guess she’s still sworn. Not going to let her leave any who… she’s too good at what… she does… yes…”

I’m stunned into silence. “Oh my god,” I breath. Holy shit. Holy god damn shit. That is… messed. “Is… she ok? Is Rieka alright? Is she here?”

“Years ago, Kallix. Lot’s and lots and lots…” he slumps over onto his side again. I get up and kick him again.

“Unurghhh,” he moans.

“Don’t bloody think you’ve redeemed yourself. Remember all the shit you’ve done to me? Yeah, after we take down Qiara, I want you to know that you’re next.”

I kneel before and look him dead in his ghostly eyes. “Ok? I will kill you.”

A smile cracks across his face. “No, you won’t. I’d be dead if you could. You’re a harmless little cockroach. A harmless, little scurrying cockroach. Scary to some, but if you know what it is… if you know what it is deep down, beneath its thin, thin shell, you can step on it. The only problem is that you have to clean up the mess that you’ll leave behind.”

~

I wrap my knuckles against the door. It swings open a little too quickly. “Kallix,” Kaloaan says, slightly surprised.

I walk through, anxious to ese what his apartment looks like. Thank god it’s back to how it used to be. Pristinely clean, not a speck of dust out of place or a chair out of angle. “How’re your lungs?” I ask.

“Well I had to use my inhaler a couple times, but it’s fine now,” he explains, tapping the small, gun-like outline in his pocket. “I was lucky, didn’t get much of the smoke.”

“Were there any casualties?” I ask, not sure how much I should press the situation.

He shakes his head. “No, but four of my officers are out of the field for the next week because of burns. Grell included.”

“Sorry for that.”

A faint smile flashes across his face. I shoot him with a quizzical look. “It’s not everyday you say sorry,” he explains.

“Yeah… hey, you remember that old saying? An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind?”

He raises an eyebrow. “First and apology, and now a proverb. Should I take you to the hospital? What’s next, you allow me to take you to the hospital?” he asks, laughing.

I scowl at the terrible joke. “I’m serious.”

“Is this about retaliating?”

“Yes. You know you can’t do that.”

“Yes. Yes, I can do that. And I will.”

“Kaloaan honestly-”

“Hey, what’s with you and Zorikan? You’ve gotten real chummy with him nowadays, huh? How much’s he been paying you to work for him? Must be tons since you’ve got the advantage of being my brother.”

“Shut up Kaloaan, you know I don’t give a damn about money.”

“So, what is it then? Booze? Hookers? What do you give a damn about? Besides apparently keeping this murderer alive. The same person who captured and tortured our damn father,” he hisses.

“God damnit Qiara is the enemy!” I shout.

“No! I mean, yes, she is… but she’s not the only one. We’ve got two enemies right now and-”

“Don’t say we,” I slice. “The only reason I’m wrapped into this is because Qiara wants me dead, and all of you are too thick headed to figure anything out.”

“We’ve got two enemies,” he continues, “and one of them is weaker than the other. It’s simple tactic to take out the weakest first, then rally yourself to fight the stronger one.”

“Divide and conquer,” I say, flatly.

“Now you’re just throwing out random sayings.”

“No, I’m not. Divide and conquer. That’s what Qiara is doing. She’s trying to divide the Swifters and the Police, so she can take the both of you out. Without either of you, nothing stands in her way. She’ll be a puppet master controlling everything that goes on in West and East Side. And you and Zorikan will be dead. Me? I’ll be fine, living in the sewers like I always have, and not much will have changed. My life will go on as usual besides the point that you… will… be… dead. So don’t even attempt to say that I’m coming at this selfishly, because for the first time in my life, I’m not.”

Kaloaan looks at me with disdain, and scratches at his goatee. “Yeah… maybe you’re right. Ok, you win Kal, but I’m not going to stoop to his level, but don’t ever in hell expect me to work with him.”

I groan. I might have achieved the impossible, but I’ve no idea how I’m supposed to do it twice.