Night has fallen over the city...and the hotel. I know the dark. It's a cover that lets people's bad sides run wild. Envy, doubt, grief...they all come out at night. Bradley...what do you think of at night? When the darkness comes? I've got until dawn to find out.
Night has fallen over the city… and the hotel.
He fumbled with his key as he pushed it into the lock. His hands were shaking, but he didn't think it was from the booze.
"Prayer" read the tag of the key, beneath the number 217.
Brian Bradley smiled humorlessly and stashed the key in his coat pocket. Nice of Mr. Smith to place him here. But he was beyond prayer now.
Falling onto the neatly made bed, he stared at the ceiling. He had finally met the unlucky sap Evans had been using, had told him everything over a drink. The painted angel canvas was still in his suitcase, waiting to be returned to its creator.
He felt like he should have cared more. But he couldn't bring himself to feel anything beyond a gnawing emptiness deep in his chest. Mila was dead, Evans was dead, and Dunning might as well have been too.
He turned his face to look out the window, seeing only the last dying embers of sunlight as dusk approached. Soon there would be only blackness.
I know the dark.
There was a time when he wouldn't have spent the night lying on a cheap bed in a rundown hotel out in the California desert. When he would have stalked the streets of New York like a king, Hyde at his side. Hyde…
It's a cover that lets people's bad sides run wild.
Under the cloak of night, he and Kyle had chased down more criminals than he could count. They had been invincible once. And now…
Envy, doubt, grief...they all come out at night.
He let out a low whistle of air from between his clenched teeth, feeling the old gunshot wound in his shoulder acting up again. That day on the docks was almost three years ago now, but he would be damned if he still didn't relive it every night, waking and dreaming. Kyle had shot him, but Bradley had inflicted the real damage. As if it weren't enough to ruin his own life, he had to go and ruin his partner's too.
Bradley...what do you think of at night?
He had heard that Kyle had quit the force, hung up his badge. To be honest, he wasn't surprised. As if Hyde could go on serving after his trusted partner had sold him out.
That day on the docks, he had barely recognized Kyle. He had never seen his partner so angry, not even the time a pickpocket had pulled a knife on Bradley and he had had to stop Hyde from beating the offender to a pulp.
They had something special between them, he and Kyle. Something Bradley irrevocably destroyed on the docks. When Kyle shouted at him, demanding to know why, he purposely said nothing. In that moment he wanted Kyle to shoot him, to die by his partner's hand, revenge on Evans be damned.
But when Kyle pulled the trigger, he may as well have shot himself. Bradley could still see his eyes in his mind, wild with grief and rage and betrayal. Hyde would be a broken man from then on.
When the darkness comes?
A sick part of him was glad that Hyde had left the beat to search for him. He knew that Kyle couldn't truly live without him, would never rest until he had found him.
And who the hell was he kidding? He wanted to be found. He wanted to see Kyle one more time. It was stupid, really. He didn't expect to be forgiven, or for Kyle to understand why he had done what he had. But God, how he wanted to see him again…
I've got until dawn to find out.
The morning of July 1, 1979, Dunning Smith was surprised to find Angel Opening a Door hanging above the bed in room 217. The man who had checked in as Mr. Kyle Hyde was nowhere to be found.