GAVIN
Dark.
It shouldn't be dark, around this corner. The lights in these hallways should be bright and buzzy. Like they always are, everywhere in the Cloister during the day. The fluorescents are the only light source in the underground bunker, except for a few battery-powered flashlights.
"Could be an electrical fault," Renzo says, talking quietly for once. Cautious.
Which means it's not actually an electrical fault, and he knows it. We all know it.
"Doubtful," Harper says. "This is the quickest way to the Hanger. To circumvent this hallway, we'd have to loop around half the Cloister."
She's talking about the East Hanger. There's a special stash there, tucked away in the lockers. Some guns. Vests. Explosives. When Gavin squirreled them away, years ago, it must have been because deep down he knew something like this was going to happen. Now, the supplies he needs to take back the Cloister and restore order are available. He just needs to go and pick them up.
The corridor ahead is the quickest route. And in this case, the only viable one. But looking at it is starting to feel like staring into an abyss, and the abyss is starting to stare back.
Renzo gives a decisive grunt. "They were tipped off."
"That, or they simply assume it's the first place you'll check for supplies," Evelyn says. She seems to be taking the situation in stride. It's all matter-of-fact to her; part of the process. For all her wrinkles and frail demeanor, she's braver than Gavin would have given her credit for.
After all, if they keep moving forward, they'll be walking into a trap. That, or this is more a deterrent--a way to buy time while the real trap is set somewhere else.
But Gavin doesn't think so.
The shadowy tunnel extends ahead of him, like the beckoning throat of a predator. Waiting for him to step inside so the mouth can close.
But it's a mistake to take Gavin for common prey.
Gavin nods, more to himself anyone else. "This is where they'll do it.
"Come on. No use waiting around."
He waves a hand as he moves forward. He doesn't stop to see if anyone's following him. He knows they are. And if they aren't, he doesn't want anything to do with them anymore. He needs people who will stick with him. He needs people who will follow him into a trap, already knowing it's a trap.
They knew what they were getting into when he released them from their cells. They can't just back out now.
Fortunately, the darkened hall begins to echo with the footfalls of his companions. They are just a little ways behind him. And that's just fine. He is the leader, after all. If no one ever hesitated to follow, he wouldn't be the Captain, but a manifestation of the status quo. And the last thing the Cloister needs right now is the perpetuation of the 'status quo'.
It's the Board. That's where the problem lies. There's not enough action, and too much useless palaver. Too much sitting around on their hands. All they have to do to stay in office is keep saying the 'right things'. Not enough skin in the game, in Gavin's opinion. It's the people who have to actually face the outside who should be making decisions. He's held this view for some time, but never with more conviction than now.
It's time to strip everything down. Start over.
Thwack.
A sound up ahead. Like a giant switch being flipped.
Light. Sudden. Painful. Overpowering.
Reflexively, Gavin puts a hand up in front of his face, bright bars of light gleaming in the gaps between his fingers.
"Stand down, Gavin."
It's Callahan.
Gavin lowers his visor of a hand, squinting, trying to make out the shadowy shapes just beyond the light. "I suppose you're here to make a big show of putting down the rebellion? How decisive of you. The people will be so proud."
"I think you'll find that not everyone is as concerned with their image as you are. Some of us are just trying to do our job."
A blob of darkness shifts behind the floodlight. A subtle rotation in Evelyn's direction, on Gavin's left.
"Mrs. Keller. I wish I could believe this was all some kind of mistake."
Evelyn's smirks. A wicked, unhinged, devil-may-care of a smile. "Don't talk down to me Callahan. You're the one who should know better."
Callahan sighs, sounding disappointed and tired. "You lied to us. You went behind our backs. That alone disqualifies you as a member of the Board."
"Oh, shut up!" Evelyn says, suddenly looking quite ornery. "The time for talk ended a long time ago. Haven't you figured it out, yet? I shouldn't have to paint you a picture. This is it, right here. Grow some balls or don't. We're not stopping."
Callahan's silhouette moves again. Arms holding something up. "I really think you should reconsider, Evelyn. I don't want to have to shoot you. Any of you. Your only option is to surrender. Please think it over."
That light. It really is too much. Like the eye of God himself, staring them down. But it seems to be serving a purpose. Mainly, it's disorienting, and it makes it hard to see exactly what's going on back there.
Callahan's not alone. That's for sure. There's got to be five to ten people with him. As many as he can safely pack together in the tunnel with firearms, shoulder to shoulder. That's three to four assailants to take down, per Watch member. Unless Evelyn has some hidden combat abilities we're not aware of.
Renzo and Harper already have their weight on the balls of their feet, ready to move. They spent a lot of time waiting around in those cells, and they're about ready to put all that pent-up energy to use.
Evelyn's pant pocket bulges as she reaches in with her hand, feeling for something. Her eyes go wide.
Oh, come on, Gavin, thinks. Don't tell me she forgot it.
She reaches down with her other hand, searching the other pocket. Then her posture sags a bit with relief, despite the tense nature of the situation. She produces a flat rectangular device in the palm of her hand, the size of a handheld voice recorder.
It's an EMP grenade. Small enough to be carried discreetly. Inconsequential enough that its disappearance went unnoticed at the Armory.
Gavin considered taking it from her the moment after he was released, but decided against it. After all, he was entering into an alliance with this woman. If he didn't trust her, what was the point? Besides, leaving this part of the plan up to her would elevate her in the eyes of Renzo and Harper. This will be an important moment, a moment of unification.
"Evelyn," Callahan says, "Whatever that is, I need you to put it down."
But Evelyn doesn't put it down. She uses her thumb to push a switch on the side until it clicks. Then, once her thumb releases, the piece flies off, propelled by a spring. She tosses the grenade.
It doesn't have to go far. Callahan and the others are only 20 or so feet ahead. The EMP blast would have worked just fine if she'd held it in her hand--not that that would have been advisable--but the gesture is commendable.
The grenade lands, skidding on the floor, sliding past and under the floodlight. Then it detonates with a sound like a gunshot, crackling, sending sparks up into the air. The electronics on the floodlight erupt in big, colorful sparks; the bulbs burst, bits of glass flung into the air, twinkling like prismatic shards.
Gavin launches himself forward. In the moment just as the grenade was sliding across the floor, he'd clenched his eyes shut, trying to regain just a little bit of night sight before the light winked out. Now the darkness is total. The only thing he can see is the bright afterimage of the floodlight etched on his retinas.
He hears the shuffle and scuff of three pairs of boots on the concrete floor—Harper's, Renzo's, and his own—echoing and overlapping in the space. Then come the shots: bursts of weaponized thunder in the tunnel, muzzles flashing. Some of them are steady, semi-automatic shots, while one of them, closer to Gavin's position, flickers consistently in an automatic, ongoing barrage.
Gavin ducks to the floor, watching the flashing, full-auto muzzle sweep from one side to the other, attempting to cut everyone down, swishing left to right to left again. Jerky, panicked movements, but effective all the same. Guns tend to work like that—life-ending forces applied with only a couple of pounds of pressure exerted on the part of the wielder.
On all fours, Gavin launches himself forward, catlike, slamming his arm and shoulder into the stomach of the gunmen with the automatic. He shoves them backward and off their feet. There's a loud crack as he lands on his back, Gavin on top. The rifle keeps firing, hitting the ceiling, causing bits and chunks of concrete and concrete dust to fall onto Gavin's back, neck, and head. He reaches out with one hand, finds the foregrip, and from there uses his other hand to find the trigger well. He wrenches the injured gunman's finger out of the well; he takes the rifle, then dives to one side, away from the visible markers of the muzzle flashes.
And just in time.
There's an impression of movement somewhere ahead of him and a muzzle flash, aiming at the spot where Gavin used to be.
Gavin fires one shot from the hip, sending the gunman sprawling. He sidesteps again, ducking and weaving.
Ahead, another shape. Whoever it is, they're wearing overalls. It's not one of Gavin's guys. Gavin pulls the trigger, and they go down. He stoops down to grab the pistol in their hand and keeps it, storing the handgun inside the band of his pants. He finds a flashlight, dropped and forgotten. He scoops it up, flicks it on, and turns to scan the vicinity of the floodlight.
Bodies. Sprawled and overlapping, laid out on the walkway. Slumped against the wall, as if lacking the strength to rise to their feet. One is splayed out on the floodlight, clothing stuck on the ruptured plastic casing. Blood oozes and pools on the floor, glistening like spilled transmission fluid in a garage.
Callahan didn't bring five men. He didn't bring ten. He brought over a dozen. Closer to fifteen, if not more.
Gavin shouldn't be alive. It's like a miracle.
A figure swivels toward him, one bare arm slick with blood, bald head shiny with sweat. Renzo.
He points a handgun in Gavin's direction--toward the source of the light--and lowers it just as quickly. "Captain."
"Where's Evelyn?" Gavin says, still scanning with the flashlight.
A small, shaky hand reaches up from the other side of the floodlight. "I'm alright. Don't worry about me."
Maybe she is. Maybe she isn't. But Gavin'll take that advice. He'll turn his focus elsewhere, for the moment.
"Harper?"
Renzo joins him in glancing around. He steps over a body, hesitates, then puts a bullet in one of Callahan's men, just as they're about to raise their sidearm to take aim at him. The shot echoes like a firecracker in a tin can, and the guy slumps, dropping his pistol.
"Harp?" Renzo says, calling out to her.
Both he and Gavin freeze for a moment, listening. Footfalls in the distance, down the tunnel.
It must be Callahan and some of his guys, falling back. After all, there's no sign of Callahan here.
Gavin's first instinct is to give chase. But only once he finds Harper, once he knows she's okay.
The cone of light from Gavin's flashlight catches, hovering over one of the fallen figures. It's the face. Something's familiar about that face. But it's not Harper. It's...Richard. Richard Tullen.
Gavin would have once called him a friend, someone he spent lots of time with. But friends come and go, relationships change. He'd been more of an acquaintance for many years.
Now he's dead. Two boys, a daughter, and a wife survive him.
A twinge of panic. An untethering. A sudden desire to turn the clock back. What the hell was he doing? What the hell was he thinking?
But the moment is brief, a temporary bout of weakness. It's not who Gavin is. There's no going back from this, and that's a good thing. This is a reaping, is all this is. A separation of the wheat from the chaff. It's not how he would have chosen for it to be. It simply is.
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"Gavin," Renzo says, turning.
That's when Gavin hears it. Repetitive, high-pitched gasping, each breath a frantic struggle. Oxygen in. Carbon out. Inflate the lungs. Deflate the lungs.
It's not long before the beam of Gavin's flashlight finds her. She's like a few of the others, slumped with her back to the wall, one leg underneath her thighs and butt, the other one spread straight. One palm pressed against the wall to keep her from falling over onto her side. But not enough strength to move beyond that, not enough strength to breathe, let alone to get to her feet.
Some part of Gavin panics again, but then there's another part, steely and cold. It examines the damage clinically. Multiple hits to the face, lots of bruising already visible, but that's the least of it because then there are the gunshot wounds. In her shoulder, her arm, her chest, her abdomen.
It's the shot to the chest that's likely giving her the most trouble. One of her lungs is probably punctured. She'll be bleeding internally, blood running into her lungs. The blood that's running out of her would be problem enough. Her arms, chest, and pants are soaked and sticky with it. Some bits of body matter, blood and whatever else, is stuck and clumped in her hair.
She's not going to leave this spot. She's going to die, right here. This is the place. And there's nothing Gavin can do about it.
Her eyes roll in their sockets, searching like unwieldy spotlights. She settles on Gavin. Her throat moves as she swallows. Her parted lips quiver in an attempt to form words. But then her eyes go distant. She seems to be struggling with her breathing, more than before. The breaths get further and further apart, and happen at increasingly odd intervals.
Renzo kneels down next to her. He's talking to Harper. But the words don't seem to reach Gavin. There's shrill ringing in his ears, like a delayed aftereffect of so many gunshots in such an enclosed space. As he watches Harper, the ringing builds, louder and fuller. Harper's chest rises, falls, rises, falls. Rises. Falls. Rises...falls...
Stops.
Gavin is running, legs pumping, heart thudding, head hammering, ragged breaths raking his insides. He's used to the pain; this is what it means to be a soldier, to keep running even when it hurts. The beam of the flashlight bobs and wavers in front of him as he runs, a bouncy, haphazard stream of light. His ears buzz with a ringing sound that doesn't want to go away, but he can still hear the echoes of his steps, as well as Renzo's, running a little behind and beside him. And he can still hear the distant echoes of the footfalls of his quarry, getting just a little bit louder with every passing second as Gavin works to close the distance.
He can't see them. Not yet. But he runs ahead anyway. Running blind into the dark, toward Callahan, toward the man responsible for Harper's death.
It's Callahan's responsibility this time, for certain. Gavin can't doubt himself, can't go down that road again—if he does, he'll go mad.
It’s because of them, the others, the abandoners of the faith, turning their backs on the sacred truths, the sacred paths, The Way—God's way. That's what it comes down to.
Gavin didn't have a choice. Callahan did. And deep down, he knew what was right. God gifted him with a moral compass, same as anyone else. He should have known better. He should have known there’s no place in God's kingdom for robots masquerading as men. The path to redemption is a road paved by the will of God and the faith of the people, not man's ingenuity and earthly wisdom. It really is that simple.
It’s a shame he and the others refuse to see that, and that Harper had to pay the price for it.
She was a beautiful woman. A powerful woman. Not as strong or as capable as a man, obviously, but still with her own set of gifts and talents. Not as pretty or as conventionally feminine as Shiloh was. She was more than that; she was always like a brother to Gavin, a brother of the watch, someone who had his back, someone he could trust. And he could only watch as the soul left her body, as her life force ticked away, spurned upward and out of this mortal realm by the Angel of Death himself.
That's what he needs to hold on to, the one comfort that he can afford himself. Harper is with the Lord now. She is in the company of Jesus himself. She will be rewarded for her faith and for her good deeds. Her treasure is in heaven; one can almost envy her for it.
Here on Earth, Gavin must press on; here on Earth, Gavin can only do his best to blink away a vivid afterimage of Harper's bleeding, dying form, one of the last of his brothers and sisters of the watch--killed too soon, killed without good reason.
It's too much, but he has to face it. And right now, there's only one thing he can do, only one target on which he can focus all of his rage.
Renzo. He's yelling something. But it doesn't seem to matter. It doesn't seem worth listening to. Until he feels a hand gripping his arm, yanking him back.
"Hey Gavin, they're not down this way."
He's right. The Armory is down the hall up ahead, but their footsteps aren't audible from that direction anymore. They must have turned off down a different hall.
Gavin skids to a stop, before turning around and taking off at a run again.
"Gavin, stop! Have you thought about this!?"
"I've thought enough."
It only takes a few seconds to reach the intersection. They'd only just passed it.
Around the corner and to the left, the hall stays dark for a ways, but there are lights in the distance and the silhouettes of four different men with their backs to Gavin, running. Callahan is easy enough to make out in the mix, mostly due to his height, and his signature grey suit jacket.
A new dose of rage-fueled adrenaline courses through Gavin, launching him ahead.
If Callahan and the others keep running at a fast enough clip, they'll be able to reach the Cargo Bay and shut the doors to the hallway behind them, locking Gavin out. They're still too far ahead to aim at with any kind of decent accuracy while running. If Gavin stops to aim, he might miss, and they'll get away anyway.
Mid-run, Gavin detaches the magazine from his rifle, checking the ammo. There's still a dozen or so rounds in there.
Enough to take the risk?
Maybe.
And maybe he has no choice.
"Gavin!" Renzo hisses, running next to him. "The Armory. If we hit the stash--"
Gavin ignores him. He is of a single mind.
If Callahan gets away and regroups, he'll have gotten away with it. He'll have won.
Gavin puts the magazine back into place and hits it with the heel of his hand, feeling the click reverberate against his hand and arm.
This is going to be tricky. When he stops to aim after sprinting for the past couple of minutes, his hands will be shaking, his heart will be pounding. He'll be taking big, heaving breaths. All of those things will make it much harder to aim accurately. Not that he hasn't trained to be able to do it, but it's never easy.
He flips the switch on the rifle setting into semi-automatic fire. He takes a deep breath. He stops running, sliding down neatly into a crouch. Momentum still easing him slowly across the floor as he aims down the sights.
It's enough to make him feel like he's going to pass out, holding his breath like this. His heart feels like it's somewhere in his head, pulsing, pounding against the inside of his skull. He closes one eye, feeling his vision about to blur. He starts letting off rounds. It's until the third round that one of the fleeing men drops, blood spurting from the middle of his back. A couple more rounds and another one drops, this time from a shot to the back of the head. Not that Gavin was aiming for it. It's a lucky hit, a result of the slight tremors in his hands and the recoil.
He stops firing for a brief second, taking a breath, easing back into a more neutral position, shoulders curved inward, elbows tucked against his chest.
The remaining two figures are shrinking in size, further and further out of reach. Gavin takes aim, trying to ignore Renzo, who's come to a stop next to him, bent over with his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. He lets off a few more shots, but they all miss, impacting the ceiling and walls. It's almost like trying to throw a dart through a long narrow pipe to hit a target.
He probably only has a couple more shots--two, maybe three.
Come on. Steady.
He lets off three more rounds, one after the other. He aims for Callahan, but for some reason, the first couple rounds hit the guy running next to him.
The third round, however--the last round--hits its mark, putting a hole in the back of Callahan's upper leg.
Callahan trips and goes down.
Gavin takes a deep gasp of a breath, a feeling of near euphoria coursing through him, intertwining with his dizzying, still-potent fury.
He gets to his feet, tossing the empty rifle aside, and keeps moving at a steady march, zeroing in on Callahan still with a myopic intensity.
That's when he notices Callahan's not done. He's already getting to his feet, even as the blood runs down his soaked pant leg and onto the floor. He's limping at a sort of half-jog, moving much faster than Gavin would have suspected, for someone with a hole in their leg. You can never tell what a human being is capable of until it's all laid out.
The fact is at this pace, Callahan might actually be able to get to the safety of the Cargo Bay. But not if Gavin gets to him first.
He takes off at a run. He reaches behind his back feeling for the pistol tucked into his waistband and draws it.
Renzo runs to keep up behind him. "Gavin, this wasn't the plan!"
Gavin ignores him.
Within seconds, he catches up to the bodies of the three downed men. following the gruesome smear on the floor from Callahan's wound seems to renew him, giving him a new jolt of energy. He's not running, he's flying. He's the Reaper. He's death itself.
And yet, Callahan's almost there, almost to the doors.
Gavin is still twenty or thirty feet off.
He aims with the pistol, fires off a couple of shots mid-run, misses both.
Blurry movement in those windows. One in each side of the double door.
One of the doors pushes open and two men rush out, and two men come out. One of the moves in next to Callahan, the side with the leg wound, and loops his shoulder overhead and loops shallow loops Callahan's shoulder over his, assisting him. The other takes aim at Gavin with a modified M-four carbine.
As the muzzle flashes, bullets slip past Gavin's head, crashing into the ceiling and wall--exploding craters of concrete detritus.
Gavin gets down into a sliding crouch maneuver he's practiced many times, puts two rounds in the man's chest, then hops back up to his feet, still moving at a jog.
The man helping Callahan turns, sees Gavin fast approaching. He steps away from Callahan and raises his pistol.
At this point Gavin is less than 10 feet away. He lets off around that hits the man in the cheek, explodes out the back of his head, killing him instantly. He slows just enough to reach out and grab the downed man's pistol out of his hand as he falls toward the floor.
More movement, on the other side of the open door and the window of the closed door.
Gavin shoots twice, once at the window, shattering the glass and hitting the person standing behind it. Then another shot at a gunman poking in through the open door, aiming at Gavin. The gunman takes the bullet in the chest, and just stands there, flinching. He seems confused, like he doesn't actually realize what's happened. So Gavin shoots him again and again. And it's that third shot to the chest that really seems to send things home. He tumbles backward as he lets go of the door. It begins to ease shut. That's when Callahan catches it, limping his way through the opening.
The door doesn't shut behind him; it's caught on the leg of the downed man behind it. Gavin slows down just enough to grab the door and push it open so he can dart through the opening.
The cargo bay is a scene of chaos. Women and children are running, men are yelling. Some of the men have guns. They're not soldiers, like Gavin and his Watch. They're just workers and family men trying to do the right thing. Like all of Callahan's cronies have been up until this point.
It's not just God's grace that's gotten Gavin this far--although he must have a decent amount of it. It's the fact that these people have no experience. They might have a grasp of a firearm's workings, but they're not competent marksmen. They don't know how to aim and shoot while hopped-up on adrenaline. They don't know how to stay focused while their minds and bodies are screaming at them, telling them not to die.
Some of them are already running, in a mindless, disgraceful panic. Others stand their ground and open fire at Gavin as soon as he's through the door.
Gavin hunches down, keeping his head low as he shifts behind cover. He weaves between the shipping containers, moving around one corner after another, bullets ricocheting off the steel crates all around him. He's just barely able to keep sight of Callahan, even if it's just a small bit of fabric from his suit jacket fluttering as he rounds a corner.
He rounds a bend and is confronted by another one of Callahan's guys, leveling a pistol at him. But the guy hesitates. He's never had to kill before. He's not mentally prepared. Meanwhile, there's a thundercrack, and blood blooms on the man's shirt, and Gavin realizes he's already pulled the trigger on reflex. As the man fumbles backward, a look of perplexity on his face, Gavin realizes who it is.
Mickey Byrd. Late fifties. Two sets of grandchildren. Worked in food processing for most of his life.
God have mercy on his soul. On all of their souls. But this is the only way. It has to be the only way.
There's no room for hesitation or remorse. Gavin is in a state of flow, acting without thinking, smoothly checking all the corners and angles in the mazelike compound, neutralizing targets with a practiced ease. He's faintly aware of a feeling of inward recession, dissociating--performing each act mechanically, like it's a drill.
Callahan. He's moved away from the cluster of shipping containers, heading toward the elevated platform at the back of the Cargo Bay--the stage where Board members stand at the podium and give speeches, and Reverend Corfield gives his sermons every Sunday. There's a group of guys waving the Board member over from an area in front of the platform, next to a tall stack of boxes. They all have modified M4 Carbines. As soon as they see Gavin, they use the boxes for cover and begin firing at him, forcing him to dive back behind one of the containers.
It's obvious what they're up to. They're leading him to the surveillance room inside the back wall, at the end of the platform.
The surveillance room isn't like the rest of the Cloister. It's walls are reinforced with a thick titanium barrier, like a bomb shelter inside of a bomb shelter. It's hard to say what exactly it would take to open it up.
In such a situation, Callahan won't survive long. Well, maybe he will, depending on just how bad his injury is. But either way, as long as he gets in there and that door is locked, he'll be 'Schrödinger's Callahan'. As far as the rest of the Cloister is concerned, their leader will still be alive and outside of Gavin's reach. They'll do everything they can to save him.
It's too late to force Callahan to give up his command. Things have escalated beyond that now. It's all out in the open. Everyone can see. There's no spinning this. And Callahan is the symbol of Cloister order to these people. To them, he is their guiding light.
That's why they're willing to do this, that's why they're willing to throw body after body in front of me.
Well, no more. It stops here.
Gavin hunkers behind cover, able to peek around the shipping container just enough to see Callahan ascending the platform stairs. He can't shoot him if he pokes out from behind cover, even just enough to get off a shot with his pistol; he'll be full of holes from those rifles. All he can do is watch, the salty and sickly sweet tang of blood oozing in his mouth, realizing he's bitten down on his tongue so hard it's bleeding.
Shots. Not from the rifles. These are semi-automatic, carefully concentrated shots from somewhere off to Gavin's left. It's Renzo, poking around the corner of one of the shipping containers, firing at the riflemen from the side.
The automatic rifles chatter back, bullets casting up bits of concrete from the floor and pinging off of the shipping container.
Renzo ducks back behind cover, but Gavin is already taking the initiative, starting over toward the boxes the riflemen are using for cover. He swoops around from the right, firing at them from the side. One of them is already down, shot in the side. It's simple enough, making quick work of the others. They were too focused on Renzo's suppression, afraid to move out from behind cover, knowing Gavin would have been able to pop out and pick them off. They were fierce, but they were afraid--not to mention inexperienced, like all the others.
No time to stop. Callahan's already halfway to the door at the back of the stage.
Gavin hops onto one of the boxes, then from there, up onto the platform. He shoots Callahan in the back.
Callahan stumbles forward, landing on his stomach, legs together, arms at his sides, looking almost like an arrow pointing toward the door leading to the Surveillance Room.
Gavin walks over to him slowly. The shooting has stopped. It's eerily quiet in the cargo bay. Quiet except for Callahan's grunts of pain and pained, ragged breathing, echoing in the vast chamber.
The esteemed board member begins to crawl, using both his arms together. He looks almost like a man trying to pull himself up from a ledge. Gavin reaches him, grabs him by the shoulder, turns them over onto his back, pistol pointed at his face.
Callahan has to blink a couple of times, processing, then his eyes come into focus. He's a sorry sight. Dark, ugly bruises marking his face. Blood oozing from various holes in his body, and dribbling out between his slightly parted lips.
Whatever fear might have been in his eyes is gone now. There's only a growing resignation as he grapples with the situation, and loses.
When he speaks, it's not with the low melodious voice that Gavin remembers; he sounds dry and hoarse.
"Tell me, Gavin. Did you picture it like this?"
Gavin's breath hitches involuntarily, some deluded part of himself catching up to this, realizing this is actually happening. He swallows, but then he can feel his resolve settling in again, galvanizing him.
He clenches his jaw. "Did you?"
Callahan closes his mouth and doesn't open it. His eyes say everything. He had underestimated just what Gavin was capable of. In more ways than one.
He reaches up with a weak, trembling hand, smeared with blood, grasping for Gavin's gun, desperate. But even with his fingers closed around the barrel, pulling with everything he has, it does nothing to stop Gavin from pulling the trigger.