The terror in the banking hall was palpable as the horrified customers watched the guard's body slide into an untidy heap on the tiled floor. Muffled sobs and whimpers emanated from the huddled customers, the tang of sweat and fear mingling with the smell of blood and gunfire.Frankenstein was biting back harsh sobs from the pain in his shoulder but, Buck noticed with growing concern, the gang's coherence and motivation had not disintegrated. The other four gang members hadn't broken ranks or panicked.
"Frankie?" Vampire shouted, still panning his gun around the banking hall from his position on top of the counter.
"Okay," came the rasping reply, "just get a fuckin' move on!"
"Anyone else wanna be a hero?" Vampire shouted at the cowering customers. "Everybody just stay real quiet, and no-one else needs to get hurt."
"You said no shooting."
The voice came from somewhere behind Buck. It was a strained, tight voice, not shouting, but loud enough to carry in the almost silent room.
"You said no-one would be hurt!" Louder now, hysteria rising.
"You said it wouldn't be necessary to shoot anyone!" Almost a shriek.
Buck twisted his head slowly around towards the sound. A tall blond man was standing at the rear of the banking hall, trembling from head to foot, a glazed, slightly maniacal expression on his face. He was wearing a suit and tie, no Halloween mask and definitely no gun.
It took Buck only a second to work it out. A member of the bank's staff. The inside man.
Suddenly, the banshee wail of sirens could be heard outside. Vampire's head snapped round to the ghost. "Casper?"
The ghost shook his head, checking his watch. "We got two and half more minutes!"
For the first time, Buck noticed the well-honed team of robbers begin to crack. Something was wrong.
Vampire walked the length of the counter, aiming his weapon straight at the quivering man standing at the rear of the banking hall. "Well?" he snarled. "What's goin' on?"
The man frantically waved his hands in front of him. "I don't know! I don't know! They shouldn't be here yet. I don't know, I tell you!"
"Kill him." Frankenstein ground out from between clenched teeth.
"No! No!" The man was wild with fear now, his eyes like saucers, frantically scanning the room. Then he saw Buck.
"Wait! WAIT!!" He pointed a shaking finger straight at Wilmington. "He's a fed! An agent! He'd be a good bargaining chip - take him!"
Something cold began slithering around in Buck's stomach and he felt his muscles begin to tighten.
Vampire lowered the gun a little and turned to face Buck. "Well now," he said quietly, "you may have just bought yourself the rest of your life, Sleeman."
Buck was mystified - how the hell did this guy know he was an agent? This wasn't even his bank!
More confident now the immediate threat of being shot seemed to have subsided, Sleeman couldn't stop babbling. "There's two of them - oh, don't worry, I've neutralised the other one, he won't give you any trouble." He smirked, a self-satisfied little grin that made Buck want to punch him.
Vampire cocked his head to one side. "Two? You got a bank full o' feds? And what the hell does `neutralised' mean?"
Buck wanted to ask the identical question. His pulse pounded uncomfortably at Sleeman's words, though somehow he couldn't see this man hurting Ezra.
"He's locked in a secure room out there," he jerked his thumb over his shoulder, "there's no phone and it's soundproofed. Better than a jail cell," Sleeman smirked again.
Vampire shrugged slightly. "Plan B," he shouted, "move everyone over there by the wall , and keep `em all together," he instructed, then motioned to Clown. "Get him," he said, indicating Buck's prone figure with his gun, "check him out and move him to the doors."
Clown grabbed hold of the back of Buck's jacket and hauled him to his feet. He pointed his weapon directly at Buck's head and a pair of very dark eyes, the only thing Buck could see behind the clown mask, left Wilmington in no doubt that he was facing a killer. This guy would shoot him.
"Gimme your weapon. Real slow and careful, thumb and one finger only - got me?"
Buck nodded, not breaking eye contact for second. Slowly and with exaggerated movements, he carefully withdrew his gun from its shoulder holster and handed it, suspended between his thumb and index finger, to the robber. He didn't like this. He didn't like this at all.
"You FBI?" Clown asked, his deep voice somewhat muffled by the mask.
"Yeah , I'm Agent Fox Mulder," Buck answered with a hard stare. The next second the hand, still holding Buck's gun, landed squarely on the left side of his nose, exploding pain through his cheekbone, fireworks in his head and nearly knocking him off his feet.
"Don't get cute with me, buddy," the threat was little more than a whisper, "or I get real ugly."
"I always did hate ugly," Buck gasped, his hand reaching up instinctively to his now bleeding nose. The sirens were outside now and flashing blue lights were reflecting off the walls of the bank.
"How'd they get here so fast?" Casper shouted as he herded the last of the terrified hostages across the room and back down to the floor.
A single shot rang out from somewhere at the rear of the room and Casper screamed, crumpling to the floor, clutching his leg, his gun skittering across the tiles away from him.
"I called them," the voice carried across the banking hall, the Southern lilt unmistakable.
Buck felt a pulse of relief.
Ezra.
7~7~7~7~7~7~7
Ezra knew the very slim advantage he had would not last long.
He had incapacitated the ghost and Frankenstein's shoulder injury would be debilitating him, but that still left three gang members to deal with, and Buck no longer had a weapon. He was fairly certain that no-one had actually seen him, so he could probably risk one more shot from his current position, tucked between a marble pillar and a large display stand just outside Sleeman's office. After that, it would be a question of speed, skill and blind luck.
"Frankie - check Casper's leg!" Vampire commanded, scanning the room looking for the hidden agent.
Strangled cries of pain came from the ghost writhing on the floor, clutching his leg.
An echoing, slightly disembodied voice suddenly shattered the thick tension in the banking hall.
You inside. Throw out your weapons and come out now, and no- one will be harmed.
Too late, Ezra thought from his hidden position. Tell that to the bank guard.
"Shit! Shit! What now?" The witch was getting panicked, his voice rising.
"Shut the fuck up!" Vampire commanded as he grabbed Sleeman by the arm and raised his weapon, aiming it squarely at the terrified man's temple. His head turned from side to side, futilely searching for Ezra's location. "Come out now, throw your weapon out first and come out with your hands behind your head, or I'll kill him. You have three seconds."
Shoot the devious bastard for all I care, Ezra thought savagely, but he realised in the same instant that this man, whoever Vampire was, knew exactly what he was doing. Sleeman might be a rat, but he was still a civilian, still part of that group Ezra had sworn to protect and defend. Vampire had also positioned Sleeman between himself and the rear of the room, knowing that Ezra had to be there somewhere.
Standish had no clean shot at Vampire, and if he shot at anyone else, Sleeman would be dead in a split second.
"One."
Ezra scanned the room. Frankenstein was kneeling over the prone figure of the ghost, the witch was holding a gun on the hostages, the clown had a gun on Buck.
"Two."
If Ezra didn't surrender, Sleeman would die. Standish was fairly certain he could take one of the robbers at the same time, but that didn't make it the right decision - one robber for two innocent, or in Sleeman's case not-quite-innocent, people, was a bad deal.
"Thr."
No time. No choice. "Okay!"
Ezra's gun clattered across the floor and he emerged from behind the pillar, hands clasped behind his head.
Vampire pushed Sleeman to the ground, then yanked Ezra by his jacket and literally threw him on the floor beside Buck.
"Who's this, then?" Clown hissed in Buck's ear, "Dana Scully?"
"No idea," Buck mumbled dazedly, wiping the streaming blood away from his nose, "never saw him before. Could be J. Edgar Hoover for all I know."
"That's Agent Standish," Sleeman said clearly, pointing at Ezra, then at Buck, "they came in together."
Clown laughed. "Oh, the one you `neutralised'." He raised his gun and levelled it at Sleeman. "You fuckin' moron!"
"Leave it!" Vampire commanded.
"He's real bad, Drac," Frankenstein said from his position beside the now-still ghost, whose blood was pooling on the floor beneath the leg wound, "he's unconscious."
You inside. There is nowhere for you to go, we have the bank completely isolated. Come out now!
Vampire ignored the loud hailer. "Get the money," he instructed Witch and Clown, then dragged Ezra to his feet. "You," he said to Standish, "are gonna do exactly what you are told, because if you don't."
He bent down and hauled Buck closer to the huge glass doors, almost pulling the lanky agent over with the force of the movement.
"On your knees," he said. The voice was calm, almost quiet, the menace evident in those three words beyond doubt. Buck knelt, feeling his stomach chill, then begin to roil with fear.
"You married?" Vampire asked. Buck looked up, slightly perplexed at the question. His head hurt like hell.
"No."
There was a silence. No more than two or three seconds, but it was as empty and echoing as eternity.
"Good."
Through a thick mist of pain, Buck realised what had prompted the question. No wife, no widow. No kids, less guilt. It simply made him easier to kill.
"Open your mouth." The command was still quiet, still composed.
With mounting horror, Ezra watched the tip of the gun barrel disappear under Buck's dark, blood- soaked moustache and into his mouth.
"If you don't follow my instructions exactly ," Vampire repeated slowly to Ezra, "I will pull this trigger without a second thought, and some poor sucker will have to spend a very long time scraping your fellow agent off the tiles. Do you understand me?"
Ezra nodded mutely, fighting the mixture of adrenaline and nausea that was threatening to overwhelm his system. His eyes caught Buck's.
"You don't have to do this, you know," he said to Vampire, his eyes never leaving his friend's face.
< I love you Buck >
< I will not let you die. >
He doubted whether Buck had got the message.
It didn't matter.
"I'm his senior agent. I'm worth more to you as a hostage than he is."
Buck's eyes widened in disbelief at Ezra's words.
"He's injured. Let him go and relay your demands and I will take his place. I will let you take me as a shield when you leave here and I will not attempt to deceive you."
Vampire wasn't buying it. "This ain't fuckin' musical chairs! You open the door and tell them all to pull back at least a block. We want a police car and a fast sedan within two minutes, then we leave - and we'll be taking hostages with us."
If the robbers left the bank with Buck, Ezra knew his friend's life expectancy would probably only be a few minutes.
He opened the doors and walked out into the bright sunshine, holding his hands high above his head.
The noise of weapons being cocked chattered in the sunlit stillness outside. Ezra could feel countless guns being aimed at him. An untidy circle of police cars, all with their doors open and officers with raised guns at every vantage point, surrounded the building.
"Don't shoot!" he shouted, "I'm here to relay the demands!" His voice sounded a lot clearer and calmer than he would have believed.
It was only as he was repeating what Vampire had told him, clearly and in a loud voice, that the red flash of a laser sight caught his eye. It was only a split second, but he had caught it.
The tiny red dot appeared again, this time on his chest. He glanced down, watching the red dot track from the right side of his chest to the left, then diagonally at a forty five degree angle back to the right.
Still repeating the demands out loud, Ezra watched the red dot. At first he had thought someone was aiming at him, now he wasn't so sure.
His brain was racing, almost unaware of the words coming out of his mouth.
"A police car and a fast sedan."
The dot moved again, retracing the same pattern - straight, then forty five degrees down and back.
"At least a block away."
Again - straight, then forty five degrees down and back.
Suddenly he realised.
The red dot was tracing a distinct path, repeating it over and over again.
It was the number 7.
7~7~7~7~7~7~7
Buck's knees were numb, the hard marble of the floor spreading icy coldness and dull pain through thigh muscles that were shaking with tension and inactivity. The combination of the metallic gun barrel filling his mouth and the acrid, coppery taste of blood in the back of his throat was trying to fire his gag reflex, making his throat muscles twitch uncontrollably. The whole of his face was one solid mass of pain; he couldn't breathe through his swollen nose, his left cheek felt like it was being seared with a hot knife, and his left eye was closing.
But worse than all of that, much worse, was the cold, hard certainty that sat like a ball of lead in his stomach.
If this guy wanted to, he would kill Buck in a blink. His eyes relayed that clearly and with total composure. Whoever the hell this guy in the vampire mask was, he was no amateur. Buck's gaze slid upwards again, ignoring the wrenching pain in his head when he moved his eyes in any direction. Vampire held the gun steadily, but he was watching Ezra, standing just outside the doors, out in the sunlit street. Making sure that his orders were being obeyed. The slightest deviation and Buck knew the man would pull the trigger.
Through a hazy mist of pain and fighting a sensation that he was about to pass out, he found himself thankful that it was Ezra out there. Ezra would not make a mistake. This was not the first time Buck had found it necessary to trust his life to Ezra, he just hoped that it wouldn't be the last.
Vampire looked down at Buck, eyes still composed and utterly ruthless. "So far so good," he said simply. Without shifting his gaze from Buck's face he shouted to Ezra, "Back up slowly, get back in here."
Ezra complied, retreating from the street back inside the doors, making sure he kept himself in clear view from the building opposite. If Vin was watching through the rifle scope, Ezra wanted to make sure he knew who to shoot first. Carefully stepping to the side to try refocus Vin's attention on Vampire, he looked down at Buck, his green eyes flashing, and even in his half-conscious state Buck realised that Ezra's expression had changed. Ezra was wearing an expression that Buck knew only too well from countless card games. He was sporting his "poker face", which meant that he was hiding something; something he didn't want Vampire to spot.
"There are police cars everywhere," Ezra said coolly, "and sufficient armed officers to make any escape extremely difficult." His gaze flicked to the buildings opposite. "There are..." his eyes looked directly at Buck, "sharpshooters over there, too..." the eyes looked away. "I couldn't see them all, but I estimate at least six or." eyes back to engage Buck's, "seven." The eyes returned to Vampire. "That was all I saw."
Buck's head was throbbing, his brain sluggish and unresponsive, but he knew that Ezra was trying to tell him something. Problem was, he couldn't work out what it was. It probably didn't matter, he was going to be dead in a few minutes, anyway. The pain wouldn't stop, wave after wave of it, washing over him. He was sure he couldn't stay even half-upright much longer.
Outside, the sound of car engines starting began to fill the quiet street, a distinct rumble of noise, the background hum of activity. A police car, its door and windows wide open, coasted to a very gentle halt outside the bank, the officer holding both his hands in clear view as he climbed out of the car and backed away. A large Volvo sedan pulled up behind it a few seconds later, the driver repeating the actions.
Ezra's mind was whirling - he didn't know if the police car had blocked Vin's line of sight. Unobserved, he moved slightly again, desperately trying to let Vin know how much danger Buck was in.
Vampire turned to the other gang members. "Time to go, gents." He nodded his head in the direction of the clown. "Grab a dance partner," he said.
Clown selected the blonde teller from the group of huddled hostages on the floor, ignoring her strangled sobs of protest as he hauled her to her feet.
"What about Casper?" the witch asked, flicking frightened eyes to the still figure surrounded by a widening pool of blood on the bank's floor.
"Leave him."
"What?"
Vampire's head turned to face the witch. "I said leave him. Get the money."
The gaze resettled on Ezra. "You, agent , are coming with me." Ezra felt a huge wave of relief at those words, realising that meant that Buck would be left behind. He nodded in agreement, feeling ridiculously light headed.
"Goodbye, agent," he said coolly to Buck, "nothing personal you understand, purely insurance, so the guys out there know who they're dealing with."
Like some ghastly slow motion, Ezra suddenly became aware of Vampire's grimy finger curling and tightening on the trigger. Sensation overload threatened to shut down his system - fear, panic, blind terror, searing along his nerves, burning, overpowering, freezing, suffocating him.
And all he could see was Buck's midnight blue eyes. They were hazy, unfocused, half-lidded.
He didn't hear the shot.
7~7~7~7~7~7~7
From the agonised quiet everything suddenly exploded into cacophonous pandemonium.
One of the huge glass doors splintered and Vampire was thrown sideways with incredible force, a large hole seemingly miraculously appearing in the side of the mask as he crumpled to the floor.
The clown followed suit at almost the same second, leaving the blonde teller rooted to the spot, frozen with horror, trembling but unable to move.
The speed of the assault was breathtaking, shots, noise, barked commands, shouting, a confused medley of voices. Ezra felt as if he were slowly sinking; further and further, down some impossibly long tunnel. He fought to regain some sense of awareness, to try and hear, feel, see, but it was like swimming through fog. His brain registered only one thing.
Vampire hadn't fired.
He had no idea how long he stood there; was only vaguely aware of people coming and going, a strange blurred mass of dark uniforms, ebbing and flowing around him. The next thing that registered clearly in his head was a soft, smoky Texas accent.
"S'okay Ez, you c'n let Bucklin go now. We're here."
That was when he realised he was on the floor, holding the unconscious Buck.
7~7~7~7~7~7~7
"I tell you, kid, I don't ever wanna be that close again."
Buck's voice carried clear out of the open door of the hospital room and into the corridor, and Ezra couldn't resist a smile at the warmth he felt rising in his veins. It was so good just to hear his voice, after.
<No. Don't go there Ezra, not yet. Not until you can think about it without reliving it.>
"Well, Mr Wilmington! You sound as if you are on the road to recovery," he said as he strode purposefully into the bright, sun-filled room. Ezra mock-grimaced at the sight of Buck's bruised and swollen face. "Even if your face has a little catching up to do."
Buck grinned - rather lopsidedly. "Ez! How're ya doin?"
"Fine, I am quite well, thank you."
<Always assuming I don't have to eat or sleep, and that I can find something to occupy my total concentration, twenty four hours a day, otherwise.>
JD stole another one of the grapes from the large bunch on Buck's bedside table. "You look tired, Ezra," he said, munching the grape and regarding the Southerner with thoughtful brown eyes. "You should've taken the time off, like Chris said."
Ezra shrugged. "I prefer to keep busy."
<That way I don't have to think. And if I don't think, then I can't feel.>
".And besides, whilst I can never hope to fill the aching void that Mr. Wilmington has temporarily left in our team, I feel honour-bound to at least attempt the task."
His voice sounded a little hollow to his own ears, but he was used to deceiving those around him with a carefully composed persona. He could fool them, of course he could.
Buck was regarding him with a slight frown, or as much of a frown as his swollen face would register.
Ezra's counterfeit smile wavered, just a little. He could fool them. Couldn't he?
Vin appeared at that moment, clutching an enormous box of candy in one hand and a bright red foil balloon with `Get Well Soon!' printed on it in the other. His face was approximately the same shade as the balloon.
"I swear, Bucklin, if'n ya don't get that hide `o yours outta this bed."
JD eyed the candy. "Wow! Who sent that?"
"Girls at the office," Vin mumbled. "An' Larabee told `em I was comin' here, so they asked me to bring it for `em, on account of you not bein' allowed too many visitors. Josiah says we oughta start an appointment book for when you go home. I reckon you ain't gonna go short of female visitors `til you retire!"
"Speakin' of going home," Buck said proudly, "the gorgeous Doctor Stone has told me that I get my release papers in the mornin', as long as I promise to be a good boy. Naturally, I told her that'd be a darn sight easier when she wasn't around."
Vin's eyebrows lifted. "I think that injury must've addled your brains! Doc Stone don't take kindly ta bein' flirted with."
"You ever tried?"
Vin blushed even more. "No, and you wouldn't either if'n ya had the sense God gave a goat in that head o'yours!"
Buck just grinned. "Well then, don't knock it until you've tried it. She smiled and said she'd be sorry to see me go."
JD snorted. "Probably more like glad to see the back of you."
Ezra's looked from one to the other. JD, still young but by no means as green as he had been a few short months ago, and Buck's most loyal defender. And Vin, to whose amazing ability Buck owed his life. To whom, at one time or another, they had all owed their lives.
They hadn't mentioned it of course. No need to state what everyone already knew, and Vin just got horribly embarrassed if his amazing prowess with a rifle was made the centrepiece of conversation.
The only person who had passed any comment at all on the shooting was JD, watching through his binoculars in stunned amazement as Vampire's dead body had crashed onto the floor of the bank. His frank, open face had turned to Vin in open-mouthed awe.
"You are one hell of a shot, Vin," was all he had said.
That had been four days ago. Was it only four days? Ezra felt as if he had lived a lifetime and then some. Four days full of debriefings, statements, explanations. Endless words, repeating the same things over and over again until they became a meaningless jumble or a litany of things he would much rather not repeat. Four days, full of concentration, effort and work.
The days were infinitely preferable to the nights.
Four nights of hideous, vivid nightmares that robbed him of any rest; that filled his mind with horrific images, finally shocking him awake, breathless, sweating, nauseous, his heart pounding.
Buck was recovering well, his natural ebullience and open heartedness making the trauma easier to deal with. He seemed able to talk about it without the same gut- wrenching horror that Ezra felt. Buck had talked about it almost ceaselessly, going over and over it, without showing any trace of the haunting terror that crept into Ezra's eyes and voice whenever the discussion turned to "the bank raid".
Ezra was almost more scared now than he had been in the bank. One thought kept breaking the surface of his tormented emotions. He was afraid he had lost his nerve. How would he cope the next time one of the team was in danger? Would he crumble under the pressure? How reliable would he be? What if one of them relied on him to save them? An agent who had lost his nerve was a liability to everyone around him. What if his hesitation, his reluctance, his fear , cost the life of one of the team?
He had thought about talking to Josiah, but had no idea how to broach the subject or explain how he felt. Discussing his personal life had never been easy for Ezra, the trust and loyalty he had found with Team 7 still left him disbelieving of his good fortune at times; but more than that he was afraid. Deeply afraid. Afraid that the sharp eyes and perceptive mind of the team's profiler would see through him, see what he could never confess to anyone, and especially another member of the team.
The real reason he was almost overcome by his emotions.
Buck.
".what do you think, Ezra?" JD's voice suddenly burst into his consciousness and Ezra started violently.
"I'm sorry," he said quickly, thrusting his hands into his pockets in the hope that no-one would see them shaking, "I'm afraid I allowed my attention to wander for a moment. what were you saying JD?"
Vin and Buck exchanged a knowing look. Buck might be the one with the bruises, but Ezra's injuries were, in every way that mattered, worse.
"Say, kid, d'ya think you and Slick could go and get me one of those special coffees from the ground floor cafeteria? I'll buy the round, but I need someone to go and get `em," Buck said with a grin.
"Sure, Buck - you want a king size?" JD was already heading for the door. "You'll give me a hand, won't you, Ez?"
Ezra nodded, trotting after JD as if he were relieved to have something to do.
Buck waited until he was sure they were out of earshot. "Well?"
Vin shrugged. "Not good. He's okay on the surface, but he ain't as good at hidin' it as he thinks he is. Oh, the poker face is on show alright, but Ez forgets that we all know that means he's hidin' somethin'. He's as jumpy as a frog on springs and looks like death warmed over."
Buck frowned. "He talked to Chris or the big guy `bout it?"
Vin's eyebrows shot up. "What do you think? This is Ezra we're talkin' `bout, Bucklin! He c'n be more tight-lipped than an oyster in the Arctic! He ain't exactly gonna go ask Chris or J'siah if they got a minute to chat, now is he? Hell, he'd rather run down the street nekkid!" He sighed. "I can't figure it out. I mean, he's been in those kind of situations before, worse sometimes. I've seen him looking at the business end of a gun more'n once and be cool as ice." Vin shook his head. "This is somethin' else. There's somethin' here we're all missing."
Buck gave a knowing smile. "Don't worry `bout it, Vin. As soon as I'm outta here I'll go see if I c'n get him to talk to me."
Vin beamed. "That's great Bucklin! If anyone can straighten Ez out, I reckon it's gotta be you."
7~7~7~7~7~7~7
The sliding glass door opened noiselessly and he stepped through it, a momentary shiver passing through him at the rapid change of air temperature between the house and the wooden deck. He took a few barefoot steps forward and leaned on the waist-high cedar railing, bending slightly to rest his weight on his elbows, cradling the mug of coffee he was holding between both hands. The coffee was hot, the steam rising wraith-like into the cool air in front of his face, tangling briefly with the chestnut almost-curls that strayed over his forehead, before carrying the fragrant aroma of Costa Rican coffee beans into the dawn.
It was early - very early, the sky tinged pink and silver, the trees stark black silhouettes, every twig and leaf sharply defined against the pale backdrop. There was no sound at all; he was standing in those few minutes of breathless quiet just as dawn breaks, everything perfectly still and silent.
An empty stage waiting for the lights to go up, the performance to begin.
A faint breath of breeze broke the moment, and he realised he had been holding his breath. He inhaled - deeply, the chill morning air filling his lungs. The air smelled damp and fresh - clean - as if the world had been washed and brushed up overnight to emerge sparkling and revitalised for the new day. How did Mother Nature do that, he wondered? How did she, every night, take weary, grubby, tainted and tired yesterday, and perform some magic ritual in the hours of darkness so that the same place, the same world, emerged bright and freshly scrubbed the following morning? Yesterday's sins and hurts forgotten, yesterday's slate cleaned, the new day bright, innocent and optimistic.
The answer came to him in a flash.
Because Mother Nature had no memory - nothing to carry over from yesterday. No thoughts, no images of what had gone before, no emotional turmoil to carry through the night like an overfull cup that slipped and slopped its contents all over this brand new morning, staining it and spoiling it before it had hardly begun.
He was tired. The day hadn't even really begun yet and he was already weary of it, wanting nothing more than to return to his dishevelled bed, curl up between the crumpled sheets and wait for the blessed oblivion of sleep. Except that Morpheus had seen fit not to bestow that particular blessing on him last night and seemed no better disposed to doing so now. His tiredness was bone-deep, aching, heavy and sore, yet his mind raced and his head throbbed with the after-buzz of adrenaline that simply would not dissipate. A body that craved sleep and a mind totally unwilling to allow it, resulting in a futile battle within him that he no longer had the strength or will to keep fighting.
He put the coffee mug down on the flat top of the handrail and, using both hands, tightened the belt of the towelling robe he wore in an attempt to ward off the slight chill in the air. He felt the tremor rippling up his arms, the instinctive prickle of goose-flesh rising, and clenched his teeth.
It was cold, that was all. Just cold.
The tremor gained force, growing in strength, spreading to his fingers, trickling down his spine. He shuddered and closed his eyes, letting his body ride out the unpleasant sensation with as little resistance as possible.
After a few seconds the shivering subsided, and he let out the breath he had been holding from between gritted teeth.
It was the cold air, that was all.
He picked up the coffee mug again, wrapping its welcome warmth between his clammy palms, and lifted the mug to his lips.
The coffee was hot, black and very strong, the fragrance and intense rush of caffeine buzzing along his nerves as he took a mouthful. Screw it. If he wasn't going to get any sleep, he was damn well going to be properly awake.
His green eyes caught sight of the knuckles on his right hand as he lowered the mug again, and he froze in mid-action. The flesh was red, slightly swollen, with a faint purplish tinge across the back of his hand. A tiny scratch, almost invisible, ran across the base of his index finger - little more than a hairsbreadth wide. Almost insignificant blemishes - certainly not substantial enough to be classed as 'injuries', yet the sight of them caused his breath to freeze in his throat and his pulse rate to increase so rapidly that his head spun.
Just as if someone had thrown a switch, a horrible succession of images began flickering through his brain, like a movie playing to audience of one in his head, overwhelming him. He closed his eyes, trying to fend off the scenes filling his mind's eye. He began to shake again, tremors juddering along his muscles, uncontrollable, unstoppable.
Dark blue eyes silently screaming at him for help.
Fear burning along his nerves, nausea rocketing up his throat as he tried to quell the suffocating panic in his chest.
Blood trickling through a dark moustache and dripping in a steady rhythm onto the front of a blue shirt.
A grimy finger curled around a metal trigger, the muscles closing, contracting.
The gun pointing slightly downwards, aiming straight .
NO!!!!
The coffee mug shook violently, the black liquid slopping over its rim, falling unseen and unfelt onto the back of his hand, down the front of the robe and onto the wooden decking, staining the bright new morning with dark drops of yesterday.
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