Long after it's over, the gunshot still echoes in her mind.
She hears it repeating in an incessant loop. Ran trudges through the hall, silent save for the banging against the door in the stairwell. The wood of the fire axe's handle is cracking, just a little, and she makes it to the elevator, pressing the button for the third floor, desperately hoping there are no more setbacks.
Like their pursuers reaching the ground floor before they do.
It's not ideal, carrying Shinichi like this, with his ankle dangling downward, not with his foot injured, but it's the only way she can at the size she's at. He's heavy, but she has no choice.
Ran doesn't think she can go through that again. Not the fight, not the killing, not any of it. Shinichi shot Gin to protect her, but at what cost? She shifts him a little higher on her back.
And can they stop at just one? Is it really feasible, once they've crossed that line to never cross it again? How easy it is to justify a murder. How simple it is to take a human life. How well it prevents an enemy from coming after them again.
Everything feels unreal, like she's outside herself watching herself. Like she will float away if she doesn't have Shinichi to hold on to.
Her grip on Shinichi tightens. She opens her mouth.
"Ran," Shinichi says, hoarse and quiet. "You okay?" he says before she can speak.
"Shouldn't I be the one asking you that?" she retorts. People kill for a variety of reasons, and most claim it is justified when they commit the murder. Shinichi's job, her father's job, is to unravel these reasons, to poke at the flaws in the method and the motive until one truth comes to light. "Neither one of us is okay."
There's no room in those cold black-and-white deductions for the grey of a struggle between two people. When is a murder not a murder? When it's in the defense of a loved one? When killing one person will prevent the deaths of many?
"No, but we're alive," he says, and his voice wavers, but they both ignore the catch.
"Yeah," she says, but her voice is low, her throat swollen, and it takes too much effort to raise it beyond much of a whisper.
"Despite everything," Shinichi says.
"Despite everything," Ran agrees, still with that strange lump in her throat. She wishes she could see his face, feel more than the brush of his cheek against hers. She looks down. Her hair is a filthy, tangled, blood-soaked knotted mess, and she despairs of ever getting it clean. Something to worry about if they live, maybe.
A long silence. Ran almost wishes for elevator music to break it. Do the means justify the end? Is intent, the desire to protect, enough to lighten such a dark deed? Ran has no excuse. She had known exactly what she was going to do when she grabbed those scissors, had already visualized the end result in vivid detail, had already calculated the risks and returns and considered Shinichi's life more important than someone who murdered with ease.
"Ran," Shinichi says, and his voice is serious. Far more serious than she's ever heard him.
"Hmm?" she answers absently.
How do you weigh a life? On its merits? Comparing it to others? Can it even be judged objectively, without bias?
All human life is precious. That's what Ran has always believed. Never before has she considered that mindset might be naïveté, considering who these people are: those who live and breathe and deal in murder, those for whom causing pain is a comfort.
That kind of thinking is a luxury for those who have never had to make a choice. Even before, somehow it had managed end up okay, what with the serial killer. What makes this different? The fact the odds are so greatly against them? That Shinichi would have died if she hadn't tried to kill Gin? That she might have died if Shinichi hadn't shot him instead?
When is a murder not a murder? She thinks the answer is never. It's still a murder, and there's a price to be paid. She only hopes they both can afford it.
"Ran!" Shinichi says again, voice sharp.
She jerks her head up. "Wha?" she says, startled.
"The elevator's stopped. We're back where we started," he says, and it's rare to hear his voice this gentle.
"Oh, right," she says, blinking her eyes hard, hard enough they water. They leave the elevator. It's the floor they started on, but it's not the bottom floor. There are four lifts on this level, and at least two of them lead up. Ran doesn't know why, but she checks each one, looking for the ever illusive ground floor. She doesn't want to chance the stairwell. She's afraid she'll hear the pounding of that door in her nightmares. She uses the guard's keycard to go through a door to another elevator offset, and lets out a sigh of relief when she sees the button leading to the exit. Finally.
"Are you sure you're all right?" he asks, worried, like his face isn't black and blue, like he's able to walk. Like he's not suffering just as much as she is.
"I have to be," is all she says. Because it's true.
"You're so brave," Shinichi says, clinging to her shoulders more tightly.
"You protected me," she says.
"You saved me," Shinichi corrects. "There's so much I haven't told you, and—"
Ran hmms. "I thought I'd lost you that night. That I'd never see you again. Then each time I saw you after that, it seemed you were always running away from me, like you were leaving me behind."
"I didn't want to."
"I know! don't think I could bear it, Shinichi. If anything ever happened to you, I couldn't stand it. There's so much we haven't talked about, that we need to talk about, and we may not get a chance, and just—"
"I know, Ran, I know."
"It's hard," Ran says. "It shouldn't be this hard."
"No, it shouldn't. But we're not the ones who get to make that choice. No one does. Navigating these rough waters on this ocean called life; that's how you live," Shinichi says. "Through one storm at a time."
"You were dying in my arms," she says. "For a moment, I thought you were dead. It can't," her voice falters. "It can't end like this," she continues, her voice stronger.
"It won't," he reassures her. "We're already almost there," he says, and that's true enough.
The elevator opens to a generic lobby with upscale furniture and a nice help desk. All white and pristine and pleasant and clinical, hiding the horrors above and below. Ran sees a business card, and it's the name of a fairly popular pharmaceutical company. The rooms are the kind you'd see in a regular clinic, innocent-looking.
It's repugnant.
And then she sees a figure in black step out from the shadows.
Blond hair and brown skin, not hidden by a cap or glasses. Ran takes a step back, frozen in fear. She knows him. She hadn't thought about it since he threatened her with the knife, but that's Mr. Amuro. The server at Café Poirot. Ran thinks she's going to be sick. She takes another step back, grip on Shinichi slipping. She feels, she feels violated, she feels vulnerable, afraid. This man was in her house. This man had access to her father and friends and family and—
A wave of nausea and disgust bubbles up, and her eyes flicker wildly, looking for a way out, but he's blocking the only viable exit, and—
"So that's what you were hiding all along, huh?" the man says. "The famous high school detective. I knew something wasn't quite right about you. Hard to believe even seeing it with my own eyes, but everything makes sense now."
"Bourbon," Shinichi says right next to her ear, and he sounds relieved.
"You're just lucky she likes you," the man says, hands in his pockets. "Doubt you'd be so free otherwise, and well, it's not like any of my previous obligations have been countermanded, so," he leans against the wall. "The property's about half a mile, then a little bit past that is a road with a freeway exit. I'd suggest you hurry; backup's already on its way. You took your sweet time."
"You're not—" Shinichi begins.
"Technically, this is Gin's mess," he says, and he marks the way Shinichi flinches with a smile. He turns. "I was never here," he calls over his shoulder without looking back.
He does pause though, just for a moment, back still to them in the white hall. "They're not going to let you be, you know. Not anymore."
"I know," Shinichi says, voice grim.
And then Bourbon tosses his hand up in a careless wave, and fades into the darkness