Killshot
Like all other nights at the docks, the scent of the Hudson and its cargo and container ships waded toward you on the wind, drawing stench into your nose that could only be so well filtered by your mask. A sleek black car had driven up into the space below, and you, Matt, and Stick carefully observed the area, waiting for Stick’s explanation and go-ahead.
“How many do you read?” Stick whispered. Matt’s brow furrowed as he parted his lips.
“I’m picking up a dozen heartbeats. Slow, steady - not even a flutter.” He tipped his head further, expression flickering in the dark. “There’s one more. Stronger. Different.”
Stick nodded. “Nobu.” You turned to Stick, and he lowered his voice. “Member of the Hand. Gone by different names over the years.”
You hummed in response, letting your gaze trail over the targets beneath you - like ants under the impending crush of a boot. The sights of these enemies as insects made your fists feel stronger as they clenched.
“They’re armed. MP7s with suppressors,” Matt continued. His face shifted beneath the mask, brows raising. “Huh. Somebody wants things quiet.”
“We’ll be quieter,” Stick affirmed, drawing out a pair of billy clubs and handing them in Matt’s direction. “You remember how to use these?”
Matt was quiet but firm. “I won’t need ‘em.”
“Yeah, you will,” Stick huffed. “Thin out the herd. I’ll take care of the Black Sky.”
You scoffed. “Like hell you will.” Turning to Matt, you kept your tone low and sure. “Matt, you take care of the guys on the ground. I’ll keep an eye on Stick.”
“I didn’t bring you here to play babysitter-“
“Too bad I have to, then,” you droned. Matt hadn’t moved, his position unwavering as he directed his cold tone at Stick.
“How exactly do you plan on taking care of the Black Sky?”
“Just do your job. I’ll do mine.” Stick nodded at the docks ahead. “Move.”
Matt started to rise up, but before he moved to leave, he turned to you. His gloved hand flew to the back of your arm, brushing you gently. You set your jaw.
“I’ve got him. Go.”
“Be careful,” he whispered. Your lips quirked up.
“You, too.”
You watched as Matt flew off into the dark, disappearing behind some shipping containers. Stick’s nearly-silent groan brought your attention back to him.
“So, that’s your strategy? Weaken me by making me wanna puke my guts out?”
You shifted your jaw, narrowed eyes digging into the gray of Stick’s. “Is it working?”
He snorted, shifting his attention to a bag at his feet as he muttered to himself. “Fuckin’ kids.”
You looked back to the space below, mapping it out again in your mind. Around the perimeter stood several men holding the type of weapon Matt had described - MP7s.
Commonly used by Navy SEALs and typically impossible for civilians to own.
Fire at 950 rounds per minute, with a range of 660 feet.
And with suppressors?
Eyeing the weapons, you shifted your jaw, their power and danger unmistakable - especially considering that their violence would be quieted and made even more accurate with the addition of suppressors.
“You seem tense,” Stick huffed beside you, drawing what looked like a weapon out of his bag. Your eyes widened.
“Stick! Why do you think?” You grabbed the thing in his hands in a burst of energy, attempting to wrench it to your side. “You agreed not to kill anyone.”
He whispered your name, tearing the weapon - which seemed to look like a bow - back. “This is a protective measure-“
“Bullshit.”
As Stick continued preparing his bow, you looked back to the open space below and noticed that a few guards were now gone from their posts.
Well done, Matt.
Above the space, a blue shipping container was being slowly lowered down by way of a crane. The guards looked on, as did you, as the chains wrapped around it let the hulking metal box float gently to the ground - upon which it landed with a graceless thud.
You held your breath as guards flanked the sides of the container’s doors - and other guards continued to disappear from their posts. Various possibilities of the Hand’s transportation of a “Black Sky” had been shown to you over the years - simple domestic abduction, as with you, or even as far as international travel, by plane or ship. This, evidently, was a more major shipment.
That man Stick had pointed out earlier - Nobu - stood before the container’s door, his hands clasped behind his back, slick dark hair reflecting glimmers of artificial light. The guards at the container’s door unlocked it with a few clangs and shrieks of metal against metal, and the doors swung open with a low creak, clanging back against the rest of the container. Your eyes grew glassy as they searched the inside, examining the shadow with a heartfelt sliver of hope - only to find exactly what you wished you would not.
Inside the crate sat a small child - a boy, you assumed. His head was shaven, and around his neck was a thick black collar, too large to clamp tightly around his throat but too small to fit up and over his head. The boy’s face was covered in dust and dirt, with brown and black smeared and smudged over his young skin, drawing particular attention to his bare and bony chest. Malnourished and neglected, his wide eyes flew open as the doors had, searching out and around him as moonlight and dim industrial glare shone down upon his weary body.
Oh, God.
Thick, silver rings of steel produced a chain that hung from his collar. The chain draped down his chest to link with cuffs over his wrists and ankles, extending further to chain him to the crate's floor. After a beat, Nobu gave the guards a nod. They then rushed in and began unlocking the child’s chains from the floor. As they lifted him, you noticed that the kid had no shoes, no socks.
Your breath hitched, stomach queasy and heaving - and you turned to Stick. In your brief focus on the child, your tunnel vision had excluded Stick’s full preparation of his bow and arrow - a bow and fucking arrow? - and he now held it at attention, the string taut, the arrow’s sharp head pointed right at the center of the crate.
Right at the child.
“No!” you cried, lunging at Stick. He released the arrow just as you knocked him down, the bow falling from his hands as he landed on his side. To your horror, the arrow soared right toward the kid’s head - just as Matt flew out from the shadows in a spinning flip, knocking the arrow with his billy club. The boy jerked his head to the side, and the arrow shot right past him.
Eyes still wide, jaw hanging open, you heaved a sigh of relief, even as gunshots began to ring out like a rainstorm beneath you.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Stick growled, clamoring back up off the filthy, stone-ridden ground. “You let it get away-“
“You were gonna kill him!” You exclaimed, glancing back to the warzone below. Matt was holding his own against the guards, fighting them off and avoiding their bullets with a battle accuracy that still both terrified and impressed you. Nobu yelled something out in a language you didn’t understand but thought to be Japanese, based on some of your past investigations, and a group of guards rushed the child into a van hidden amongst the cars. Nobu went with them, encasing himself in a sleek black vehicle as Matt continued in his plight through shouts and gunfire alike. Stick got back up into a crouch, saying your name through tight and spitting lips.
“I was taking care of it. It. Not him.”
“And how can you be so sure?” You hissed. Stick shook his head.
“Now I’ve got to go take care of the mess you and your little boyfriend made of this,” he huffed, getting to his feet with his things and starting off to the edge of the building. You got up to follow but turned back to see Matt heaving in the midst of his fight. In the split second between fighting one guard and the next, he seemed to nod at you, his senses evidently making him clear on what was happening.
You kept your voice a low whisper but sounded out each syllable with strong enunciation, just in case.
“Meet back at your place?”
Matt gave another nod amid a high, scathing kick to one of the guy’s faces. That was all you needed, and you sprinted off in the direction Stick had run.
From your point atop the building, you saw that Stick seemed to be running off in the direction of one of the cars - specifically, a car parked further back than most of the others. You scaled down the thin ladder you’d used to reach the roof and ran in Stick’s direction, watching as he grabbed a goon who’d just opened the driver’s seat door. With a grunt, Stick rammed the guy’s head against the car, and he was out cold.
Your chest heaved as you sprinted over pavement and its potholes, the cold wind whipping through you as bullets flew above. Stick got in the car and shut his door just as you reached the passenger side, pulling it open and swinging yourself inside with a slam.
At your side, Stick clenched his jaw, starting the car up with a heavy rev of the engine.
“What do you think you’re doing, kid?”
You drew a sharp breath, your tone a monotonous deadpan as the vehicle pulled out of its spot and, on unsteady, unruly, raging wheels, soared toward the other cars.
“Babysitting.”
Stick swerved uneasily around corners as he rocketed after Nobu and the child, his bow and arrow lying over his lap. The back wheels drifted so hard that you had to grip your seat to stay steady.
“Maybe I should drive.”
Stick chuckled. “No chance.”
With another sharp turn, you’d reached the line of vehicles. Two cars lay ahead, and in front of that was the van.
The child.
“I know what you want to do, Stick,” you breathed, “but killing that kid is not the answer.”
“You think you’re gonna talk me out of this? It’s not a kid. Jesus, how many times do I have to tell you-“
“You’re insane.” Your hiss at Stick was low and throaty. “You’ve lost your fucking mind - if you ever even had it to begin with.” He ignored it, and having rolled down the window at his side, he reached down to prep the bow and arrow with one hand. Your eyes widened.
“Stick-“
“Changed my mind. Take the wheel,” Stick commanded, letting go of it entirely. The car shook, and you gasped, reaching for the wheel and wrapping your hands around it with a rigid grip of pure adrenaline. Clenching your jaw, you swerved slightly into the other lane, pulling desperately on the wheel to get the car back on track.
“I’m gonna knock out the back wheel of the van ahead,” he explained gruffly, stringing the arrow. “When they turn, you turn. No hesitation.”
You grit your teeth, struggling to maintain the steady drive forward of the car at Stick’s sickening speed. “And if I don’t?”
Stick tilted the bow to get it out of the car window, leaning with it once he had it upright and properly strung, his posture stiff and straining.
“Then we crash and die. Your choice.”
You bit at the inside of your cheek, the scowl over your face only heightened by the position Stick had put you in. You scanned the road ahead as the other vehicles shot through the dark, passing buildings and parked cars, glittering unknowingly in the moonlight. The van took a sharp turn right, and you set your jaw.
Stick huffed your name. “Ready?”
The car behind the van turned, then the next - and you clenched your jaw, your grip on the steering wheel forcing your knuckles to the top of your skin - and turned.
Wheels squealed on the pavement, and you felt all your organs swing to the side. Cold air whooshed in from Stick’s open window, and he grabbed onto the car roof to hold himself steady, letting out the lightest of grunts, even with his attitude. Your lips curled back in frustrated focus as you kept on with the turn, willing the vehicle not to drift, crash, or flip, the sound of shattered glass and screaming metal crying out like a warning alarm in your mind. Every inch of your concentration remained on the car just in front of you, and finally, as if that turn had lasted hours, your car swerved into place just behind that of the enemy.
You let out a short breath.
“Good job, kid,” Stick huffed before pulling the arrow back and firing. Jaw falling open, your eyes traced upward after the arrow as it flew toward the sky before tipping down and falling, jabbing right into the back wheel of the van.
Shit.
The van swerved as if on ice, a sharp cry calling out from the dying wheel’s grind against the ground beneath it. It sputtered and slowed - before the car behind it soared into it with a sickening crunch, the other car doing the same. It was all you could do to turn the steering wheel, just enough to avoid the other vehicles' fate. With a clenched jaw and tight, aching arms, you pulled on the wheel and got the car past the wreckage with little more than a hair of space to spare.
“Fuck,” you breathed as the car began to slow.
A flash of hope danced across your mind. With the van stopped, the other cars wrecked, many of the guards potentially incapacitated - you could rush in and tear that collar off the kid, maybe rip his chains from the floor of the van if you had to.
You could save him.
You could save him like no one had saved you.
But, before this fleeting hope could come to fruition, Stick reached back and grabbed another arrow. This time, though, you knew exactly what it was for.
Absolutely fucking not.
Car crash be damned, you let go of the wheel and reached for Stick’s arrow, wrapping your fingers around it in a tight grip. Stick glowered at you, tugging back on the arrow.
“Think about that kid,” you hissed, straining against Stick. “What if that had been me? Would you have done this to me?”
Stick only tightened his grip, tightened the clench of his jaw, his old lips puckered in the shadow of a long-formed frown.
“I would have done whatever I had to do,” he spat. “A mission is a mission.”
A pang tore through your chest at his lack of humanity, even where you were concerned - you, someone he’d abused but also shown flickers of care for. Your voice was firm, but it sounded more like a breath than you’d hoped.
“And a child is a child.”
At that, Stick lifted his foot and rammed it against your chest, shoving you back into your seat with a hard slam. Grunting, you surged back up and forward - only for Stick to ram that hard sole of his boot against your face, slamming your backward, your head banging back against the glass of your door’s window.
Pain shot up through the back of your head and the front side of your face, where Stick had kicked you. You tasted slick copper run down over your lips and lifted a hand to tug your mask down, just enough to smear it away, even as stars of white and purple dotted your vision. You pulled your mask back up, struggling to focus your eyes. Stick leaned back into the car, his voice low and achingly cold - like it had been all those years before.
“And you are too weak to know the difference.”
Vision still spotty, you reached back up at Stick, but it was too late. You grabbed at his bow just after he’d fired, the shot clearing cleanly through the window of the van in an abrupt, cracking shatter of glass - glass that likely otherwise would have been bulletproof if not for whatever tricks Stick had up his sleeve. Not knowing whether it was real or your imagination, you thought you heard a squelch, a crunch - and a shrill, weak scream echoed out from within the van. After a mere moment, it was gone from your scarred ears, left only to echo in your memory and your nightmares.
No.
Your chest heaved, and you found yourself falling forward, hands shooting out against the center console of the car to keep your body up - dizzy with both your head trauma and your undeniable loss. Stick pulled himself back in through the window and rolled it up in silence.
“Get back safe, kid. I’d stay on the back streets and rooftops as much as you can.”
The air in the car felt stale, tainted only by the metallic hiss of your blood. With flaring nostrils and a fiery glare, you shot your attention again to Stick, twisting up to claw at him - only to see him open the car door and slam it behind him, slinking stealthily off into the night.
The car’s oxygen stilled somehow more, your body still rigid where it hovered over the console, even though the threat was gone. Finally alone, finally still - your breath caught.
A child.
He killed a child.
A child who could have been just like me, but a child just the same.
A flip of your stomach churned up every part of your insides, and you wanted to gag. Holding back the sensation, you pressed your lips together, an irritating burn rising in your throat, pressing against the back of your eyes.
And I could have stopped him-
But I didn’t.
I should have been able to stop him.
But-
But Stick got away with it, anyway.
Like he always does.
With a tight blink, you willed any moisture back into your head.
No.
No time for this bullshit.
Time to get the hell out of here.
Cursing under your breath at Stick for leaving you high and dry, you swung your feet up and over the console, pulling yourself into the driver’s seat of this still-running car. Just as a few stray, injured guards had staggered out of their vehicles, rushing over to yours, you pulled forward and soared, spinning to the left in a dramatic swerve.
A hiccup rocked you once as you fled the scene and willed your unsteady heart and aching lungs to hold still. Your fingers tapped restlessly against the steering wheel, even as your grip remained white-hot - even harder than you’d held it earlier. With your raging hands feeling like fire, it felt as though you might melt through the wheel to its very bones. A flicker danced through your throat, and you cleared it harshly, almost painfully, alone and bitter in the dark.
Focus.
You just need to fucking focus.
A stray tear emerged from the inner corner of your eye, trailing slowly down your skin to mingle with the blood over your upper lip. You tasted nothing but this salt and copper as you sped through the night. It tainted your lips, your tongue, the core of you with the horror of your past, its torturous hold on you leaking relentlessly still into the present.