Chain reaction
He sat. He wasn't moving. He wasn't doing homework or messing around. He wasn't working or saving the world. He just... sat. It had been a month. A month of safety, of freedom. Of childhood. But that was the problem he wasn't a child. Physically speaking yes he looked like a child, but a ducks a duck until it starts doing back flips. Mentally, Alex was far to mature, far to 'grown up' for his age and it showed in his brown eyes. His face emotionless, with his expression non-existent. His eyes held a sadness that he'd been holding within. He now knew it was true. He hadn't until then, not when they'd told him not when he saw the blood, not when he saw Jack. 'No' he mentally corrected himself 'not Jack, the body, Jacks no longer there'.
It was quick. She felt little to no pain. Like falling asleep. The bullet was a clean shot.
Four things he was told, only the last one registered. This sickened him. He felt numb, he'd frozen, cried, shouted in anger at MI6, cried, felt pain, hit objects and random people in anger, felt guilty, and cried. Then he stopped, he felt nothing, it was like he'd run out of emotions, he couldn't cry any more, he couldn't blame other people whose fault it couldn't be, he couldn't even feel guilty as he had for so long, because deep down, he knew it wasn't his fault. He didn't pull the trigger. He didn't cause the tiny metal shell to penetrate Jacks chest and rupture every heart valve killing her instantly. The gun did. The trigger on the gun did. The chubby finger of a low ranked Scorpia assassin did. The task assigner did. Scorpia did. It was at that moment when the decision was made mentally. Alex may not have known himself yet but subconsciously it was set in due course, history would be changed with this decision. He was not forced or blackmailed into it; it came from his own mind heart and soul. Scorpia would be eliminated. By who? Alex Rider, a teenage boy, of 14 years, filled with silent emotion. Silent but deadly.