Twice
in the past, I’ve taken a bullet, and that’s plenty of times to know that
there’s a certain sensation of weightlessness, detachment, that accompanies a
high-caliber round tearing through your flesh.
I’ve
got that feeling again now.
Only
this time, there’s no pain to follow it up, no abrupt and sobering loss of
blood to refocus me, force me to move again.
I’m a mile up in the air, with nothing to bring me back to earth.
And
I refuse to believe that Legato doesn’t know what it’s like to be left on the
edge like this; that’s probably why he looks away so casually, leaves me
stretching my toes to put some solid ground beneath them once more.
“I’ll
take care of it,” Midvalley says, even though he – even though both of them by
now – are shifting glances between us as though trying to decipher an elaborate
code. Reluctantly, he turns to go, and
reluctantly Wolfwood follows him.
“What
the hell’s going on, Legato?” I force
myself to wait until after they’ve disappeared down the stairwell before I
speak, and once the words are out they ground me and I can think clearly again,
even if there is still a bit of unease gnawing at the pit of my stomach like a
trapped animal.
He
looks calm, cool as the other side of the pillow. “Just as I said: we’re leaving.”
Smug. “Is that not
acceptable?” Bastard.
“But
why the sudden change of heart?” He
doesn’t have any patience for questions, but he can’t leave me in the dark
again. I’m not going to let him… “Why Babylon?”
His
eyes narrow a little, and I know that where I’m going right now is somewhere
angels never, ever tread. "I don’t
know what that city means to you, Dominique,” he says darkly. “But I have my orders, and so it’s nothing
to me.”
“You
don’t know anything, do you?” And I
wish that once - just this once - I could grab him, shake him, or maybe just
reach up and slap that tiny, too-certain smile right off his face. Anything to make him listen to me.
“Not
nearly as much as you know, I’m beginning to suspect,” he says in a tone that
tells me what I’ve known, what I should have been thinking of all this time…
that it would only take the slightest effort for him to see all my
secrets.
I
think we’ve really been connecting lately; I’d hate for it to all end over
something stupid like that. But the
way he’s looking at me now, I’m starting to wonder if maybe I shouldn’t be
tying up my finances, setting all my affairs in order for the end. Baking the last batch of brownies…
I
brace myself.
And
he turns away.
“Your
secrets are of little consequence to me, Dominique. We will proceed whether you wish to tell me or not.”
Wish
to tell him? What a fucking laugh… I
can’t help a soft sigh of relief.
He
turns back at that, and his eyes flash briefly. He tilts his head to the side, like a bird. Not a cute little friendly sparrow; no, more
like a huge hungry vicious bird of prey.
The kind of bird with six-foot-long wings, talons that can crush bone,
and a beak sharp enough to eat your heart right out of you while you
watch. “Indeed.”
“Indeed? Sir?”
It’s all I can think to say, and it’s hollow and hopeless.
“Dominique.” The slight upward curl of his lips, the
formation of tiny lines in the corners of his eyes, are the only phantoms of
emotion he lets surface. He’s a mask.
“Your behavior is rather… erratic.”
I
stumble back a step; that was the last thing I expected from him. It’s instinct – the kind of thing that keeps
animals alive in the wild… not that there are many animals around here anymore
– that my first inclination is to apologize, but he’s not accusing me of
anything. He only sounds quietly curious.
Though in his dialect I wonder if those might not be almost the same
thing.
“I’m
just tired, Sir,” I settle for at last.
Not tired physically exactly… tired of a few things, that’s
probably a little more accurate. Tired
of running, of lying. Tired of blood
and the smell of smoke and of lovers with hands like sandpaper, bone hard from
the recoils of too many pistol shots.
“Just… very tired.”
He
moves in a swirl of ivory coattails, to pass me, to slip away down the hall
without another word, as though in an instant I’ve suddenly become
uninteresting, inconsequential to him.
We’re nearly touching before he stops once more, closer than I thought
he would ever dream of allowing someone.
He
doesn’t wear amusement well; it clings statically to the yellow of his irises,
hitching up in the corners of his mouth like a cheap suit.
“Well,
don’t stay gone so long next time.”
He’s practically purring.
Basilisk eyes flash briefly to mine, and then he moves again. A spike of black shoulder armor trails –
just barely – over the outside of my shoulder blade as he slips past, accurate
and sobering as the point of a switchblade.
“Legato…”
But
my mouth feels dry, and by the time I manage his name, I’ve already given up on
anything else.
At
the top of the stairwell, he doesn’t turn, doesn’t even pause, but over his
shoulder: “Don’t expect me to wait up again.”
And
when he’s gone, I hate to admit it, but I can’t help feeling a little – well,
maybe a lot – relieved. Another notch
on the barrel of my pistol, I suppose.
I tip my head slightly, to bury a smirk in the rise of my coat
collar. It’s not quite like any emotion
I want to try to explain right now.
I’ve
got nothing to look forward to but another long and dusty trek through the
desert; I’ve got nothing to rely on but a mouthful of lies.
Things
should always be this good.
“Bastard,” I mutter, but around a grin I can’t seem to shake. “Miserable bastard.”