Such a cold night for what would’ve been merely the beginning of the autumn season. The summer heat had crept away, even from the city’s nightfall as a breeze whipped through my hair. I still had my jacket tied around my waist, the chill in the air biting at my skin and only serving to distract me from my own thoughts.
It wasn’t long before I felt a pair of eyes on me, turning my head just in time to see her sidle up to my side against the edge of the roof I was leaning over. She leaned forward playfully and almost had half of her form staring down at the street almost 6 stories below. Her orange-red hair dangling over her eyes before she hopped back and turned to face me too - Her own smile raising my own.
“Up on this roof again, huh? You’ve been moping up here for ages, like you always do!” She groans with her words, coming over and wrapping her arms loosely around me, enough to sway my posture and have me dig my foot into the ground to stay steady.
“The view’s nice up here, c’mon, like there’s anythin’ else to do back with the others. Vince is probably.. Fillin’ gas tanks and making more molotovs. Sye is punching a wall with his stupid rock hands and Leon.. God.. Fuck knows what that guy is doing.” A little bit of contempt in my voice spills, as if I’m getting sick of the things we do in this town. Like everything wasn’t bleak enough already.
“Hah! Yeah, Mr. Ol’ Mysterious bossman of the Frontrunners. As if you really wanna deny that he’s the guy keeping us all together..” We both eventually sigh after her little giggling fit, almost in unison. My gaze had been averted since she’d locked onto me with her arms until I felt her shuffle, her hands on my shoulders now. Her expression was softer. Our eyes met as she looked up at me. Before I knew it, I felt her gentle hand on my cheek.
“.. Kai.. Every one of us is important to the crew. Leon’s not.. A bad guy, none of us are. We’ve gotten rid of gangs far worse than us and taken over their businesses, or even deconstructed them entirely. That’s why we’re, y’know, The Frontrunners.”
I felt another long sigh heaving through my lungs, my hands having unconsciously wrapped around the waist of the girl that was embracing me. Even under this dreary lighting, the muggy night sky.. Maybe she’s really the reason I haven’t drifted from this place. Always edging on the idea of settling everytime I see her face. “Thanks El’.. I guess you’re right.. I felt like I needed to hear that..”
“Of course I’m right!” She sticks her tongue out at me for a moment, teasing me, “When have I ever not known what I’m talking about, eh?” She pipes up, another cheeky grin curling at her lips before she leaned up on her tiptoes and planted a kiss on my cheek. Alright. Way too cute. Her wavy hair falling over shaved sides with that punky undercut haircut she had.
I just nodded obligingly, obviously not gonna bring up all the times El’ had no idea what she was talking about as I spun around to turn her back to a certain building in the distance, the building pretty much all of us gathered.. Eh, I guess it was more like lived in. “Guess we better head back.. Two of us missin’ is just gonna piss the guys off.”
. . .
.. And almost as if on cue, I could see the same building in the distance as floor after floor of the abandoned downtown highrise had its windows blown out by an explosion so strong we felt the shock soon after the boom that rocked the entire street. This was so far downtown, even with something like that, we both gave each other a knowing look that the cops wouldn’t bother coming for almost an hour – The swinging squeak of the roof’s door echoing through the stairway as the roof became vacant once more..
The icy air whipping past me made it almost hard for me to breathe through the shock I was experiencing, burning my lungs and numbing my limbs. I couldn’t even feel my legs moving, even though I was probably running faster than I even knew how to, the building coming closer into view as fires burned through the windows. Embers floated through the air when I could finally slow down towards the entrance of the building, the door flinging open right when I reached my hand out to open it myself.
“Leon? What the hell happened?!” My voice was raised out of instinct as I heard El’ catching up behind me. Leon looked unscathed, almost anyways. The first person I had met and who’d taken me in when I was alone out in this wasteland of a city. He’d taken an interest in me on account of my endurance in an interrogation he’d intervened in, that and.. Jokingly from the others, on the account of both of us having white hair. Honestly, it was a huge relief to see at least one person alive from that explosion.
He just stood there in the doorway, looking at me with that same resting scowl before he brushed past me and out onto the open street. Facing the both of us while I was just waiting for an answer. I was about to scream at him for one before he finally spoke, just sending icy chills down my spine worse than the air around us.
“They’re all dead.”Three words that would’ve been enough to bring me down to my knees if it wasn’t for the adrenaline running through my veins. “What?” My voice was shaky, filled with so much confusion. I could see El’ covering her mouth with her hands in the corner of my eye. “What do you mean.. How do you know– Did you even check if anyone else survived..?!”
Leon was still silent, I fucking hated when he did that. He didn’t move a muscle, his expression hardly changed as his curtained hair just barely hung over his eyes. The piercing blue of his irises shining under the shadows of his locks. “.. They made me a deal, Kai.. You always said it yourself, right? We always were too good at what we did. Now things are out of balance.. I could just get out of this shithole for one last job.. Take out one last gang.”
The more he spoke, the more I realised or.. The more the creeping idea of what could’ve happened seemed to be becoming a reality. The whole thing we did as a crew, we took out gangs worse than us, sort of like vigilantes but with money up in the air. Leon always seemed begrudging about the idea ever since I kicked the gang off the usual path. My brain was so preoccupied with connecting the dots of what Leon might’ve done to all of my friends, I barely realised or.. Even saw the gun he was pulling out from the back of his belt.
I blinked. A gunshot rang through the air. Louder than the explosion that rocked the building that me and El’ had seen from before. I felt no pain, was that the adrenaline? I looked down and saw no blood through my tank top, these moments feeling like dragging minutes despite it being just a few seconds before my eyes finally glanced over at the girl I had in my arms only minutes ago.
“ELENA ! !”
That was the first time I said her full name, I think. Gurgling and gagging as her hand clutched at her chest. Leon lowered his gun as I caught her in my arms before she fell. I lowered her to the floor as she coughed and gasped for air. The bullet had gone through her lung, I’d seen it happen before. I knew how she was gonna die, how much pain she was probably going to be in. I held her hand tight while my hand was pressed tightly against the wound that seeped blood through her clothes and over the pavement. She was losing blood so fast, becoming even paler than she already was. “El’, Please, I’m so sorry.. I-I’m right here.. Oh fuck– What the fuck is wrong with you!? We could’ve just disbanded, moved to another city!!”
I felt Elena grip my wrist with the last of her strength, she couldn’t even form words, the lack of air, the blood filling her throat as it spilled out of her mouth.
Leon’s expression still hadn’t changed, no remorse at all for killing the girl I.. I loved. Killing my friends.. Vince.. Even Sye. “You know that’s not how it works. I’d have to get rid of you all, like pests. Save the best for last.. Right?”As Leon spoke, I felt Elena take her last breath in my arms, passing so soon as tears flowed from my eyes without me even being able to control them. gritting my teeth and weeping with anger as I turned to this traitorous bastard. He raised his gun again, both of us locking our eyes against each other before I glanced down and saw his finger about to squeeze the trigger.
There was no way I was just going to accept my death from this motherfucker right after what he’d done. I jumped forward in a desperate attempt, rocking the barrel of the gun up to the sky right as it fired. Both my hands were on it as Leon tried to pull it back down with his other hand as well. Two more shots fired. I felt my hands raised up with his as we wrestled over the gun. “You killed the people that stood by you, just for your own selfish reasons!? I always knew you were a fucking monster!”
“Living for myself? If that makes me a monster, this world’s already fucking filled with them Kai, get out of your own fantasy!”Leon swung the gun to the right, taking it out of my hands before I felt cold steel pistol whip me across the face - His fist following soon after until he almost raised the gun towards my head before I swung it back in the air above us again. “We’d already gone through so much together and you tear it all down! We were like a family, you sick fuck!”
In the distance, I started to hear sirens. Guess the cops arrive faster than usual when a building explodes that even the big wigs could see off in the distance. I finally manage to hit the lever that empties the magazine from the gun, struggling to wrestle the gun from Leon’s hand, even pull the barrel back to at least jam it. I feel him kick into my shin before he knees me in the stomach. I almost keeled over, but I knew I’d die if I did. The both of us walk backwards as I stagger forward to stay upright. “Family? What a fucking joke.. Grrh.. Links like that are just gonna get you killed..”I could hear Leon’s voice straining. He should’ve pulled the trigger sooner, my strength prevailing over his as I managed to take one more step forward and headbutt him right between the eyes. Hard enough that his grip loosens on the gun enough for me to kick him in the stomach with the heel of my foot and topple him onto his ass.
“Yeah. It will.”
Was all I said flatly as my anger, my instincts, I aimed the gun at his head and pulled the trigger without a second thought. The sirens grew louder with each passing second as that last gunshot rang throughout the desolate street. Leon’s brains painted the sidewalk as I dropped the gun onto the floor - Having fired the last bullet that was left in its chamber, the slide having jammed back against the hammer. My prints were all over it. A burning building, two corpses outside and my DNA all over the scene. I slumped against the wall nearby Elena’s body and tried to keep my breathing steady. I felt like I was gonna throw up.
My body slowly started shaking, the adrenaline wearing off as the pain settled in. Everyone.. Was gone.. I was the only one left, again. Alone again..
The red and blue flashing lights burned past my closed eyelids. I hadn’t even realised I closed my eyes. The darkness behind my lids felt more comforting than opening my eyes and having to look at her being dead again. I felt like I was in denial once everything started
to wear off, like this was just an awful dream.
.. Even though.. Even after what just happened.. I was hoping that Leon would just kick me in the side and wake me up. Tell me to get to work, there was another job. Elena would be there, saying she wanted to come if I was going.
Sye would argue that he’d get the job done better than I would, that he used to be the muscle around this place.. Vince would wanna come too. But he’d be kept behind before he burned up something valuable again.
The moments of that peaceful fantasy ebbing away as the prospect of reality was unavoidable, being ripped out of any kind of sick, coping serenity I was in as a pair of police officers lifted me to my feet and pinned me against the wall. The awful sound and feeling of cuffs wrapping around my wrists while I could barely hold myself up. Not that it mattered much anyways, seeing as I was thrown into the back of one of the patrol cars regardless..
Most of the trip to the station was a haze. I don’t even remember it, I don’t even know if I want to remember it. File this, fingerprints that, get changed into this, clean the blood off your hands. I was just mindlessly following their orders like a zombie while I was still trying to process my loss. Eventually coming to my senses near the tail end of the entire ‘booking my records into the whole system‘ deal. I realised I was going to be getting my mugshot taken soon and even though I’d accepted it before, jail.. Was not somewhere I was supposed to be. Or wanted to be. I didn’t deserve to be here, I was defending myself! I knew the way this system worked though, I already had a record in different states. I’d be looking at manslaughter minimum, maybe. That’s what it could probably be talked down to with a shitty public attorney that I wouldn’t even be able to afford.
They handed me a black plate that I held the wrong way round at first. The officer shouted something at me that was entirely incomprehensible. My brain probably just didn’t want to understand it right now, but I turned it around. I got a good look at it first though. My full name in bold letters, like I was holding a gravestone that marked the end of my life to be taken by a grainy camera that would define me for the libellous news story that would slander my name. Everything in my life leading up to this point, I almost couldn’t believe it..
Sauntering forward, I held the plate up to my chest and glanced around the room with my back to the height lines. They barely put any effort into lighting for a photo. A camera sticking out of what was obviously a one way mirror while they counted me down. I had to look for a way out, settling on the only obvious option for me now. Breaking out of an actual jail would be so much harder. I had to get out of this place before they put me on that bus going nowhere.
I saw a door to the left of the room, but I only met eyes with a guard who met me with an accusing glare right as the camera flashed against my stature like it just signed the seal to my grave while I only had one thing running through my head..
‘ God.. I am so fucked.. ‘
