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Concrete gets uncomfortable to sit on after a while. This, you know well. You’ve sat in this holding cell for two weeks already - still awaiting the hammer of trial and sentencing, and you understand this to be a process that will take some time - and while you aren’t sure how long you have left to rot in here before you’re sent to a proper prison, because you’ll surely be sent somewhere, it’s better to get used to the feeling.
So you sit on the floor. You do have a bed, but it isn’t much better. The springs hurt your back. And you prefer the cold that permeates the ground to spread across you, anyway. You always liked the cold, you think. The cold winds itself into your bones, infects you and protects you. It embraces you like nothing else in your life ever did. It’s better than the typical humid heat that spreads itself thick across Florida.
You settle in on the floor, leaning your back against the wall. You sort of wish there was a window to look out of. It would give you something to do. Your hands always itch to do something, to cure yourself of an incurable boredom you’ve had since you were a teenager, and there isn’t anything to do in this cell. Nothing but bang your head against the wall and rattle the chains of the handcuffs locked onto you, since you can’t be trusted to be free even behind bars. You suppose that it’s a fair assessment. A vague sense of annoyance drifts by, but you can’t be bothered to do much more than let out a faint exhale through your nose.
You tug on those chains again. The metal holds steadfast, because of course it does, and you don’t know how to get out of these without a tool. The metal is grating on your wrists and cold, too, much colder than the concrete floor you still sit on. But the skin irritation is just another thing you’re slowly getting used to, because it’s not like you have much choice in the matter.
You probably had a choice, at some point. You could have left Miami, left the state, hell, left the country. You had a chance to get out. But instead you lit up a smoke and waited for the police to find you just past two corpses marking the end of the Russian mafia.
Maybe not the end, a murmuring thought whispers to you. There could be a son.
Regardless.
The cell is silent. It always is. You’re not a talker - and you never really were, especially not after, well, after - and besides, there isn’t anyone to talk to. Not anyone besides you and that little nagging voice always at the back of your mind. You knock your head against the wall, and wish for something. For what, you’re not sure. Maybe just something new to look at.
You don’t believe in anything magical. You’re a grown man, far beyond the age where you would have believed in anything fantasy-like if you ever really did at all. But you did make that wish. Even if it wasn’t for anything in particular. You just had an ache for something, anything at all, and after all of this in the future there’s going to be a little nagging thought that insists maybe that your wish had something to do with what’s going to happen.
But that’s in the future. And you don’t know what’s in the future, and you’d never believe for a second that your wish for something more affected anything so significant. Though, you haven’t even had that thought yet. But you probably will soon.
As if on cue, after that vague wish that was hardly a wish in the first place, you hear something a little strange. Something that you didn’t quite expect to hear - and in fact you never expected to hear again for a long time, unless it was from an officer taking his anger out on you in a way that could be easily covered up. The sound almost makes you want to laugh, but you don’t, because you haven’t let out a laugh in three years and aren’t about to start now.
A slight smile does curl on your lips, though, before vanishing just as quick.
You can hear gunshots. It’s an intensely familiar sound, and you can almost envision a gun sitting all pretty in your hands, covered in blood and gore. Someone’s clearly causing a ruckus somewhere around the building, and it’s getting closer. They’re moving pretty fast, whoever it is. Not that the officers are hard to get rid of, you did it easily yourself, and you almost did it a second time after everything. You were too tired to keep fighting, though. That’s how it tends to be with you.
Whoever is making their way towards you - because you’re fairly certain you’re the target, which puts an odd feeling in your chest, with how the sounds and shouts keep moving at a steady pace towards you - clearly knows what they’re doing. The sounds of guns firing off their shots never once cease during this entire time duration. You’re not sure how long it really is. It’s not like there’s a clock in here. It could be just minutes or it could be hours, or, hell, it could be a full day.
You were always good at keeping track of time, though, so you guess it takes about an hour and a half for everything to fall quiet. Not once does someone check up on you. Maybe they’re hoping that the infiltrator will kill you. You half-hope they’re right.
But after an hour and a half - an hour and a half of tipping your head back and listening to the gunshots and to officers yelling and screaming just beyond this room and desperately trying to succeed but they all die in the end. Predictable. Though it took faster than you thought it would. You expected with how many pigs that swarm this building it would take at least another hour.
It’s impressive. That thought sends another swarm of odd feelings into your chest that you’re unsure how to recognize.
There is a final last gunshot that rang out a minute after all the others went silent. And it doesn’t go off again. And you’re certain that it’s done. What exactly, you aren’t sure of that. But you open your eyes and stare intently at the door, waiting and waiting and waiting. It’s done and now it’s your turn.
They’re going to kill you. That’s what the murmuring voice in your head tells you. You don’t bother with a correction, because you’re not sure if you’d be right. You usually aren’t.
Faint footsteps echo from outside the door. They’re heavy and hurried and you get the impression that whoever is coming doesn’t want to waste time.
Wasting time means more manpower to hinder their job, that voice says. They don’t want to lose this job.
You wonder if it’s 50 Blessings taking another shot at killing you. The voice says maybe. But don’t be sure. You never really read the newsletters anyway, so what does it matter?
The door creaks open. You don’t know this man.
Something about him is familiar. You can’t quite put your finger on it, though you scrutinize him from your place against the wall, trying to place what about him you recognize. He’s wearing non-descript clothes, just something anyone on the street would be wearing albeit in pretty bright pink and teal colors. You can’t even see his face. It’s just a reflective teal motor helmet, and maybe that’s the part getting you, there’s a memory just on the edge of your head but it’s- you just can’t quite reach it-
He advances.
You do not move. You watch him with sharp eyes, watch him advance with slow, heavy steps toward the cell door. And you have a realization. Regardless of whether you know this man - and you’re certain that you do, you just can’t quite recall - you think you know where this familiarity comes from. It was just hard to see at first.
It’s quite simple, really. The voice in your head feels almost soothing, despite your hammering heart. You’re no longer the killer.
You’re the prey.
All of your breath leaves you in one push, and you don’t even mean to do that. But there’s a sudden panic - that’s what it is, isn’t it? - gripping your heart, and you’re not quite sure how you’re meant to feel about it. It feels like you’re looking at this situation from the top-down and unable to move, and unable to fight. You wouldn’t even be able to fight if you wanted to. And from the looks of it, with a blood stained machete gripped firmly in one hand as the man flipped through keys on a clearly stolen key ring, no matter what you’re dead where you stand. Or sit, rather.
Maybe there was a time where you wanted to die. And maybe that still is that time. But you weren’t prepared to be faced with this, so clearly the prey in front of a predator. It doesn’t feel the same when the situation is flipped.
You feel a little nauseous. You haven’t felt so nauseous without alcohol since April. That’s when you got that mask and ruined your life without even thinking twice.
He finally finds the key he’s looking for and unlocks the cell door. It creaks loudly as it swings open, existing and then dissolving in the space that exists between you and him. He stares at you - you think, you assume, you can’t see his eyes behind the helmet.
You’ve spared so little people mercy in this life. You kill and take apart and destroy, because that’s what you’re good at, that’s what you’ve always been for and nothing else. You’ve had that lesson beat into you since too young an age.
But you wonder. You can count on one hand the amount of people you’ve shown kindness to. That you have spared. Will that same grace be extended to you?
He takes a step forward.
No, you decide. And you do not close your eyes, because regardless of your fear you are not a coward and you never will be. So you stare, and wait for that bloodied machete and raise and make your end. But it never does.
Instead, he takes off his helmet. And now you know where you’ve seen his face.
“Nice digs,” he sneers, tucking the helmet under his arm. There’s blood dripping off of it and some of it is already dried and crusting off. He casts a fleeting look around the jail cell, before landing his gaze square on you. “Did you think you killed me?”
Yes, you want to say. You don’t. But he must see some sort of minute shift in your expression because he throws his head back and laughs, almost tipping himself over. He doesn’t seem to be very stable on his feet.
“I’m not supposed to be here,” he says. “For a lot of fucking reasons. But I kept seeing your face on the T.V. You’re national news, you know that?”
You didn’t. Though you suppose that’s not a surprise.
He rolls his shoulders, looking behind himself at the door. He doesn’t seem nervous. He should be. He says, “I can help you out.”
You suppose he didn’t kill all those officers for nothing. And there’s going to be more. There always will be. And when they get here, whether or not he scrams before then, they’ll pin it on you, even though you’ve sat in the same spot for hours now with your hands cuffed. They’ll find a way to blame you and kill you faster.
You wonder if you want that. Then you realize you don’t have to, the choice is being made for you as he crouches down close to you to unlock the handcuffs and free you. Is there something to gain from this, helping you?
You glance at him, finding him staring intently at you like you’re his high school science project, and maybe you are. There’s a grin stretching his lips, pulling at a scar across you don’t remember seeing last time. You realize that the scar might be from you.
“Come with me or don’t,” he says. “I don’t give a fuck. But I didn’t kill those pigs for nothing.”
He still hasn’t said why he’s here. You’re not sure if he’ll bother with an explanation, even if you mustered up enough voice to ask, not that you would. But you still struggle to your feet and follow him, rubbing your raw wrists and watching him stumble from step to step like it’s a dance. You think he’s on something. You wonder if he’ll share.
Bodies litter every room, every hallway, even the elevators that you two take back down to the first floor. It’s a comforting sight, somehow. Maybe you should be ashamed of that. You’re not.
Maybe you should run away from your temporary companion. That would be smart. But you keep walking and you keep following and maybe following and taking orders is all you were ever built for, beyond the killing and destruction. There’s a deep sense of unrest in you, at that thought. But you can’t find it within yourself to stray from this man’s path.
You’re an idiot, that little voice whispers to you. It’s taken on a more hostile tone. But, the voice muses, you might as well see where this goes. How much of a choice do you really have? Not much, you think. The voice agrees.
The man doesn’t give you his name. You don’t think you ever really knew it. Kill first, never ask questions is - was? no, still is - your unspoken philosophy and he was just a job. You’re sure he knows that. But he doesn’t introduce himself to you regardless, hardly says a word as you two pick through bodies and bloodied halls much less a name, even though you’re certain he knows yours. It was almost certainly plastered all over the news along with your face and all the dirty details of the things you’ve done. And you’ve done a lot of things.
You step over a particularly gruesome corpse lying prone with a throwing knife still stuck in his neck, digging into his spine. It probably paralyzed at first, not quite killed him, you imagine. He was probably stuck, face-down on the floor, unable to breathe or move or do anything except listen to his compatriots die to an unstoppable force with a machete. He probably suffocated to death in all this blood and gore, breathing it in and wishing he would just die already, get it over with, fingers twitching as barely-there nerve endings worked to let him move, do anything, to at least end his own misery-
Your savior leans down to rip the knife out. He gives you a look - a contemplating, sweeping gaze over your entirety - before offering the weapon. You take it. Your aim was never good with these things. But you grip the handle, tilting your head, and think, letting the static slowly filling your head wash over you.
You can learn.
He seems satisfied and the two of you continue picking your way to the exit, and it’s not long before you make it to the outside world. It’s dead of night, unsurprising, though you’re unsure of what time it is, exactly. You jolt when he unexpectedly grabs your arm, but don’t protest when he leads you to a motorcycle, bright red and flashy that somehow fits him. You’re not sure how, but it does, even if it’s the kind of flashy unsuited for a getaway.
“I’m leaving Miami,” he says, kind of sudden. He lets go of your arm and looks over his shoulder at you as he steps closer to the motorcycle. “It’s fucking nuts here, man.”
You find yourself nodding in agreement, almost without your permission. There’s a sort of fuzzy feeling invading your mind that you hadn’t quite noticed for the most part when still inside, but it’s making you feel strange. The street lights around you crack and fizzle and burn bright but it’s a dreamlike sort of light and you would know that sight well.
“I can help you out of here,” he says. Don’t believe him, the voice scoffs, but it sounds like syrup to you, pouring over your brain slow like molasses and getting stuck in all the cracks. “You in?”
You feel like there’s some sort of catch to this. That if you say yes, figuratively, then you’ll be indebted. Indebted to what, indebted how, you aren’t sure. But there’s that feeling that you know you can trust in your gut that says you might regret it if you agree to his help, if you don’t just turn away and fend for yourself against the authorities a second time around. You almost want to say yes. And you aren’t sure if that’s smart. It’s not.
But he turns to look at you with a wide grin that stretches the scar marring his face and you find yourself nodding again without your permission - this is your savior, can you really say no? (You could, but there’s no fun in that.)
“Well, come on.”
And you’re not sure exactly how it happens, just like you’re not sure how exactly anything has been happening ever since he stepped inside your holding cell, but you’re sitting behind him on the motorcycle, awkwardly holding on to his middle. You barely fit together. You’ve gotten scrawnier, lately, more so than before, well, before, but the two of you are still two full grown men squished against each other and it’s a snug fit. He doesn’t seem to mind, though, so you don’t object.
You don’t know where you’re going. This is a thought that makes it through the static of your thoughts, slugging itself around and insisting you ask, insisting you have to know. And you do want to. But you stay quiet. And he doesn’t offer up the information, just like he didn’t offer up his name, and you have a nagging suspicion that this is going to be a theme.
If you want to know, you can ask. But you don’t ask. You’re not sure if you just don’t want to or if it’s a subconscious disallowance, to open your mouth and ask a simple question, but the fact remains. You can ask, if you please. And you don’t.
And anyway, you’ve already made your bed. Time to lie in it.
He gives you new clothes. He gives you cigarettes, too - though not directly. There’s a pack already sitting, snug, in the pockets of the borrowed sweatpants he gives you. You don’t have a lighter, but you suspect he’d give you one on request. You don’t make the request. You just slip your knife into that same space, and ignore the cravings suddenly itching at your skin.
You guess the apartment you’re standing in, the one he took you to on that bike and led you up the stairs to, is his. It’s dirty. Not that you can complain, much. It’s both dark and incredibly bright at the same time and you feel, in your drab clearly-thrifted clothes, that you stick out like a sore thumb. The feeling doesn’t bother you. You’ve always stuck out, a little or a lot. But it does make you tense up, make you wonder the true purpose of your savior’s actions, and make you a little too aware of the knife in your pocket pressing against your leg.
He doesn’t say much. He’s rifling around, gathering things into two separate bags, muttering to himself. He seems agitated. He also keeps looking at you, staring, giving you side-long glances he probably thinks you’re too out of it to notice. It wouldn’t be an unfair assumption.
“We’ll leave in a car,” he tells you at some point, forcing one of the bags into your hand. As an afterthought, his lips twist - and twist that scar, too, that your eyes immediately snap to - and he mutters to himself, “Have to leave my bike. Fucking shame.”
You’re not sure if you were meant to hear that last bit. Regardless, he glances at you and bares his teeth in a snarl when he notices where your attention went. It shifts the scar again, tissue stretching and spreading uncomfortably, and it is fascinating.
“Lookin’ at something?” he sneers, stepping closer.
You glance at his eyes - or, the one eye that isn’t obfuscated by a sheet of teal hair. It’s blue, and narrowed, and glimmering with either malice or amusement. You’re not sure which is more dangerous.
Though, if he was going to hurt you, he probably would have already. You do not react.
He steps back. His expression changes and he almost looks satisfied, in a way. The same sort of smug satisfaction when you took the knife that is burning in your pocket, or when you agreed to go with him. It all feels like a test of some sort, that he’s watching and seeing you react and you’re thus far passing with flying colors.
“Last chance to back out,” he tells you when he grabs the other bag with one hand and a familiar machete with the other. “I don’t do this sort of thing for just anyone, you’re a special case. Got it?”
You nod, just slightly. You understand.
He eyes you with a critical gaze. You may be passing his tests but you are not trustworthy, you presume. “You and I both have done some shit to get us on death row. If you ever rat me out while we’re on the run, here -”
And this is when his voice drops to a familiar octave, one you remember hearing in a hazy memory of Phone Hom.
“- you’re dead meat.”
You still don’t know his name or what his true intentions are, though you feel his purposes may be muddied in ways you cannot conceive. But he turns on his heel and walks away, and you follow him down streets with half-dead street lights and dim alleyways. You’re not sure exactly what part of the city you’re in. But he moves with purpose and confidence and if there’s anything you trust you can trust that.
He mentioned a car. It’s new, clearly. You wonder how much money this guy has hiding away. It’s new, but not flashy, not obvious, just a simple, common black. You figure if it doesn’t stand out to you, it won’t stand out to others.
The bags get tossed in the trunk. You’re not actually sure what’s in them. Clothes, probably. Weapons, maybe. You sneak a glance at your savior, again muttering to himself as he slams the trunk closed and winds around to the driver’s side, and wonder if he’d think to bring toothbrushes. You wander to the passenger’s side and get in the car, and wonder if he plans to keep his hair that bright teal, if you’re supposed to be on the run.
You sneak another glance, this time at his hair, and let your gaze trail over it, noting the length, the color, the browning roots at the top. The teal matches his eye. You wonder if that’s on purpose.
“Last chance,” he says like a warning. He looks at you, nearly catching you in the act of what you suppose was admiration. He repeats, “Last chance.”
That awful little voice in your head had been silent in the few hours since you’d gotten on his motorcycle. But it rears its head again and harshes out a whisper, telling you to break his neck, dump the body and take the car. Save yourself.
But you do nothing. You do not leave the car. You do not speak. You look back at your savior with an even, level gaze. His lips twitch up in a grin. That scar twitches as well, and you are gripped with the urge to reach out and touch it.
You leave Miami with a stranger. You still don’t even know his name, though he knows yours. And you’re content with that, you think. You can’t ruin your life more than you already have, even if that voice is screaming and screaming every minute you stay in that car with him.
You leave Miami with who you call a savior. You leave what you called a home with someone you don’t know the name of, and you feel satisfied.