I walked over and crouched beside him. Close enough to see his eyes. Close enough to watch the light fade.
“You should've stayed in the light,” I whispered.
He died staring at me. Trying to understand. Failing.
I stood slowly, every movement agony. My ribs ground together. My shoulder was on fire. My calf leaked blood into my boot. Something warm trickled from my temple where that bastard had clocked me.
The cathedral went quiet except for rain through the broken roof and my own ragged breathing.
I stood in the center of it all, surrounded by bodies and shattered glass and pools of blood turning pink in the rain.
Counted.
Twelve.
Twelve men dead because I'd decided they needed to be.
Not justice. Not protection. Just rage wearing righteous clothing.
I looked down at my hands. Blood mixed with rain, running between my fingers. Some of it was mine. Most of it wasn't.
My reflection stared back from a puddle at my feet. Hood thrown back. Face streaked with blood and mud. Eyes wild. Feral.
I looked like my mother's ghost.
I looked like the thing that had killed her.
And I couldn't tell anymore which one I was supposed to be.
Sirens bled into the night. Not one. Many. The city waking all at once.
I climbed back through the window, scaled the wall, and ran. Rainhammered my hood. Thunder shook the air. Lightning turned everything white and merciless.
The alley spat me out three blocks from the docks. I cut left, then right, then climbed a rusted ladder to the roof of a shuttered fish market and went still. The sirens grew teeth. Blue light washed the warehouse facade, jittering across broken glass and wet brick. Uniforms spilled in waves. Fire crews. Ambulances. Unmarked sedans that did not bother with markings because the men inside did not need them.
I should have gone. I stayed.
From this height I could see patterns. The way officers take corners when they think someone might be waiting. The way a perimeter breathes. The way a command post grows out of nothing. A white van door slid open. Scene techs pulled on gloves. Floods snapped on. Rain turned to glitter in the beams.
Then he arrived.
Not loud. Not late. A dark coat, a quiet stride, a presence the weather did not touch. Detective Akintola crossed the tape, flashed his badge at no one in particular, and went straight to the center of the mess. He spoke to the first uniform on scene. He listened for ten seconds, asked three questions, and everything around him sharpened.
He did not look up at the roofs. He did not need to. He looked where I had stood.
He walked to the mouth of the alley I had used and crouched by a scatter of glass. He lifted a shard with two fingers, angled it to the light, then set it in a paper envelope. He took four steps, paused at a scuff on the wet concrete that I had not meant to leave, and called a tech over with a small tilt of his head. The tech photographed the mark. Akintola’s gaze tracked from the scuff to the fire escape to the line of guttering I had climbed. He marked each without moving his hands.
He paced the interior next, guided by a sergeant. I watched him count shots by the pattern of holes. He stopped under the skylight where rain dripped through and considered the angle. He looked at apallet with an arrow still quivering in the wood and did not touch it. He spoke to the sergeant again. The sergeant swallowed.
For a heartbeat I let the fantasy breathe. Drop down. Tell him why. Tell him the crate markings, the route, the names whispered before the bullets. Hand him the map I carry under my skin and ask him to finish what I cannot.
Lightning cracked the sky in answer. The fantasy died.
Akintola stepped back out into the rain and did something that made the hair rise on my arms. He lifted his face to the rooftops and let his eyes move, not random, not hopeful. A slow grid. Corner. Parapet. Sign. The fish market. Me.
I lowered behind the lip of the roof and let water pool at my collar. Counted to ten. Came up an inch. He had already moved on. He spoke into his radio. Units peeled off to hold intersections I had used once too often. Another unmarked eased into position at the end of the block where my bike slept.
Time to go.
