All hell was breaking loose. That was the best way to describe it: I had no control over these events and they were like living one of my worst nightmares. The young girl we were all here for had stopped in the middle of the entrance hall, palms clamped over her ears. Her eyes screwed up and her mouth opened wide into a scream. I'd promised her mother that I'd never let any harm befall Missile Kid. I was pretty sure that being scared out of her wits counted as harm.
She wasn't the only one scared. My heart beat so loudly that I thought it would burst through my ribs. My thoughts flickered to the other Killjoys, fighting so valiantly – my friends, my brothers – as I took a step forwards into the carnage. A beat of sweat dripped down my hot forehead, but I knew what I had to do. I had to kill the Dracs before they killed me. The response to them being in the room was automatic, now. I raised my ray-gun. When did this stop being a thrill and start being a horrific dream I couldn't wake up from?
He was going to kill her. That's what I told myself, afterwards. That's how I tried to justify myself. Strange how I had to justify that murder, and not all of the others. My shot went straight into the back of his head. He fell down, already a corpse – at least he felt no pain – as I automatically reached out to grab the back of his head. The black and white rubber mask slipped off into my surprised hand. The dead man spun around as he fell, his face staring straight at me with vacant eyes.
He was human: vulnerable. There were no monsters in this world; the things we had been fighting hadn't been thoughtless machines. A couple of different choices and I would have ended up exactly like them. I'd always known this, of course, deep down: I'd just never had to face it before.
The thud of him hitting the floor was deafening. It drowned out everything, even her urgent scream. I wanted to run towards her, pick her up and take her far away. I wanted to drop my filthy ray-gun and never pick it up again.
Dracs. Soldiers. Men. Despite the bright colours, the loud rebellion, the good intentions, I had been killing living, breathing human beings. I dropped the rubbery mask as if it burned my skin. My palm did feel blistered with its touch as I took a deep breath. There was no time for this self-indulgence; I had to get this over with and keep her safe.
A body crashed into me, so heavy and real that I almost welcomed it. The wall knocked the air from my lungs, but that wouldn't matter in a few seconds. The edge of a ray-gun pushed itself into the fleshy underside of my jaw. Korse looked at me, tilting his head slightly to the side, smiling slightly.
Fear had left me; I couldn't plead or even feel much. I simply looked into his eyes, unblinking, wondering. I wasn't as bad as him. If my kill looked at me with their human eyes, if I saw them as the desperate men they were, I wouldn't be able to pull that trigger.
But he could: he would.
I just hope you're waiting for me, Sugar…