The War for Hell's Kitchen
Reunion Under Fire
By: Brenli
"Clear...!"
Finally.
Nema wasn't sure what to feel about Nyssa sending her off with escorts. Touched, but... bothered, just bothered. But how was she going to be able to explain that trusting the police in Hell's Kitchen was like trusting snakes, that she knew from experience, one of them making an attempt to strangle her?
And yes, of course, a bad seed does not the whole group make, but it didn't change her apprehension... or her feeling that this was unnecessary. Michael hadn't shot the DA. Michael hadn't shot Tepper.
How to explain her sureness in this? She didn't know. It wasn't how he did things. She'd poured over enough photos of the crime scenes he did take responsibility for to see the difference in the gore. Brutal, yes. But where Reyes' and Tepper's murders had been a literal spray of bullets, coating the area, Michael Castle's murders were very singular in their cruelty. His aim so perfect, there was no need to wash a room down with ammo. That... and while people like Reyes and people like Tepper contributed to his pain, they weren't the ones at the root of it. He wanted them exposed, yes, shown to be the frauds they were, but his guns were meant for the kind of people who unloaded their own upon innocents like his family. Michael didn't kill people who didn't deserve it. He'd said it and he'd meant it; he hadn't lied to her...
Even so, she moved in and immediately grabbed a folder and thumbed through it, looking for the list of living persons involved in the aftermath of the massacre in Central Park. Regardless of who the shooter was, that shooter was clearly going after the people connected to Michael... and if she was honest with herself, that was the one thing that made her step back and consider the possibility. What if Nyssa was right, though the thought of it immediately made her feel sick? What if Nema projected goodness onto Michael...?
But no, that didn't... it didn't make sense for it to be as simple as projection. If she was projecting goodness onto him, then wouldn't it feel out of place in one way or another? If she was projecting goodness onto him, then what had kept him from shooting her that night in the hospital, running with Voice? It wasn't poor aim. His aim was almost too good, deadly metal whispers through her hair. That good.
And that was why he couldn't have possibly been the one to shoot DA Lailah Reyes. The gunshots had been so indiscriminate. The only reason she was alive was because Uriel had pushed her down, partly covered her. Michael wouldn't do that to her... Right? But then, who else had these names and addresses, aside from him?
Maybe... maybe prison had changed him? Made him cold. Made him feel more desperate to kill. Made him sloppy. Made him stop caring about innocents. Made him stop caring about h-
"You live alone?"
God, she was unbelievably relieved to answer, to have her train of thought broken because it came from a place of unexplained... things. Feelings, and knowings. "You wanna ask me out, or you wanna wait outside?" Cruel of her, and made all the more intimidating when Max poked his head out from the kitchen area and moved into view. Smiling his adorable pit bull smile, and also making it clear he wasn't secured on any kind of chain.
But it wasn't the kind of question she wanted to humor, even if it helped sever where her head was going. Did she live alone... why? Why did he want to know? If he meant well, she wasn't interested. If he didn't mean well, she wasn't going to make him aware of what advantages he had. A terrible way to treat an officer of the law, but uniforms and badges meant so little, in Hell's Kitchen. She couldn't trust him, because she didn't know him. Hell... she wasn't sure she could trust many of the people she did know.
As the police shuffled out to wait by her door, Nema hurried around her bed to gather more folders, Max following her, his tail whipping against the bed's edge. Her brown eyes glanced up and spotted one of the pictures on her bedside table... Her, and Setsuna, and Uriel. Drunk and happy. Her face always went bright red when she had too much to drink. So did Setsuna's actually, and with his green cap on, he looked like a tomato. Uriel's didn't, but he had this peculiar 'drunk face.' A loose smile, no more tension in his brow. Sad, she realized, that a face of joy registered only as a drunk face, on him.
She didn't even trust them, though she wanted to. Not with everything, not with all of herself... because she was terrified of losing them.
But now, here they were. Growing further and further apart, but maybe that was for the best. Not even running to a new state had saved her from attracting trouble, from... from bloodiness, and death. It just followed her everywhere. Maybe she was cursed.
That thought was punctuated by the sound of a heavy thud, a very specific sound. The sound a body made when it dropped to the ground, unconscious and therefore unable to catch itself. Max's ears perked up, his body stilled. Staring in the direction of her door.
"... Officers?"
Nothing.
"Hello?"
Another thud. This time Max moved toward the door, though his gait was easy and his tail kept wagging.
"Max, Max...!" Nema's voice was firm but low, and quivered with fear, with... with the entirely-too-familiar need to survive.
He listened to her, pausing, but still stood with his tail whipping around happily. Sweet pup, she wished she was that innocent.
But she wasn't, because there was no way she would have lived as long as she had if she was that innocent. She was tainted with distrust and the need to survive, which flipped a switch within her. The switch that made her grab for the nearest weapon, the gun in her middle dresser drawer, with every intent to use it. She could do it. She knew that she could, because she'd done it, before. Nema was nonetheless cautious, both hands holding her little gun as she gently stepped forward. Closer. Closer still, until she was in front of Max.
Michael Castle walked into the doorway. No bars. No handcuffs. No lines of tape to separate them, for the first time... just her gun. He had both hands tentatively raised, and his face was colored over in a wash of bruises. Max barked, moved past Nema to circle Michael's legs with glee... and Michael didn't seem surprised that she had him. How did he already know she'd found his dog? Had he been watching her place?
Yes, he must have been. It only set her need to survive into overdrive; was he the one responsible for the shootings, was he mentally sound, would he kill her, should she kill him before he killed her? A terrible thrill of pain flashed through her like heartache. She felt younger. She felt like a young girl pointing a gun at someone she cared for, as someone innocent hovered near him.
She could see Michael reading her. Blue-green eyes, rimmed in bruises; they should have looked hard and mean but they were soft. They were sad. And they were even pleading. She didn't know how she knew that, but she did. He looked sorry and he looked like he was begging her... for what? Now that was a mystery. "Shh shh shh shh..." He stepped closer, moving into the room with Max just... happily staying at his side. Trusting him.
Pain broke through the terrible familiarity of being in this position. She wanted to trust him. She wanted to... "Hands on your head, Michael."
He took another stride forward, and she cocked the gun.
"I mean it."
"It wasn't me."
She could feel her heart jumping and her gut churning because she knew, she knew, she knew... "Hands on your head or I will unload this thing, I swear to Christ!" She was almost proud of how fierce she sounded, just then.
His bruised eyelids lowered as he stared at the barrel coming ever closer, aimed right at the center of his chest. "Nema."
Her breath came out in an audible rush; she was at once both scared and wild. The only other time she'd ever heard him say her name, it was to tell her she didn't know him. It had come straight from his mouth. If that was the truth, then why did she ache with believing him? And why did fighting that ache just make it hurt, more?
He looked back up, their eyes meeting. God, he looked so sad. A tired kind of sad. It made her feel guilty. "Miss, it wasn't me."
But she didn't know him... he'd said it, himself. Right? "Do it." She insisted, though she could hear the wavering in her resolve. The way her demand ended in a soft gasp of a breath. She didn't want to do this... She wanted to welcome him back to the world, as imperfect and corrupt as it was.
She could see the way her two words struck him. Punching into him like verbal artillery... and she wanted to take it back, the guilt rough and familiar even though she hadn't squeezed the trigger. She wanted to take it back.
"Okay..." Michael said so softly, any hint of gravel was gone. "Okay." He did as she demanded, hands resting on the back of his ginger-red head. "Hey..."
God, he was consoling her. Not necessarily a remarkable action in itself, but when she responded with another shaking gasp of breath... it just felt like he knew. There was no way he could possibly know, but it felt like he did. Like he knew this reminded her of terrible things she didn't want to repeat, but would if she had to.
His head suddenly turned to the side, realization playing across the bruises on his face, but all Nema could hear was the pounding of her heart in her own ears. "Max, down!"
There was no time to process his command. One moment she was standing with a gun pointed at him, and the next she was on the floor, gun torn from her grasp, with Michael on top of her and Max belly flopped by their feet.
Bullets. For the second time today, she was being shielded by a spray of bullets, shattering the glass of her windows, tearing up her curtains and her bed sheets, piercing her apartment walls... and yet she was covered.
Every part of her. His legs braced outside of hers, shoulders hunched over her, arms curled around her with one hand on the crown of her head, and his chin tucked over her. He'd turned himself into a shell of a man, and it was strange, because she wouldn't have imagined he could surround her so well. Uriel was considerably taller than him and goodness knows that he hadn't quite been able to cover her as perfectly, though she didn't think it was fair to compare a blind man's skill at protecting her with that of Michael's.
Her hair was a mess; she couldn't see through the pale strands of it. She just heard gunshots and her breathing and his breathing. Her heartbeat and his, that's how closely they were pressed together. Or maybe she was just hyper-aware... After all, this was the first time they'd ever touched each other. Maybe phrasing it that way sounded intimate... maybe, maybe. But it was still the truth; they'd never so much as shaken hands, before. Circumstances hadn't allowed it, and yet they'd connected with their words. With their eyes. With just knowing. And it had been enough, which made this feel... she didn't know how to word it. Excessive, but not bad. Overwhelming. Reminding her of how alive she was and how alive he was.
Maybe it was just adrenaline?
The gunshots stopped, and his head lifted, but his hand remained. She hadn't imagined his touch would be particularly gentle, but he brushed her pale gold strands out of her face with a delicateness that was... actually, needed. Her breath came in frightened gasps, and her own hand, which had curled around the top of her head to protect herself, moved until her fingertips tapped against his. His fingers moved over hers, and she felt calluses. His touch was still tender. "... J... Jesus... Christ...!"
Max's dark, wet nose suddenly appeared; his fat, pink tongue licked across her face. Wonderful.
"You believe me now?" Michael said dryly, the rumble of it echoing from his chest into her back. His breath brushed across her ear. She shivered from it.
Wait.
"I believe you...!" She spoke in gasps, blinking up at him... and it felt so good to say it out loud. It felt so good to know it. A relief, like thinking otherwise had only been forced upon her by doubt, or by other people. "I believe you...!"
Her heart was still thumping wildly from nearly dying a second time in a single day, adrenaline making it hard to focus... But she almost thought she caught a pink-red wash flare up from beneath all his bruises. "Okay." He turned his head, again, checking that the assault was truly over. "You gotta get out of here." He finally moved off of Nema, and her skin suddenly felt too exposed despite her clothing. Like walking out of a hot shower and suddenly feeling the chill of the air. "Stay low. Go, stay low."
"Get his leash."
"Where?"
"Draped over the desk chair."
"Got it." And she felt his hand travel from the nape of her neck, where it had stayed, down her spine...
It lifted away when it reached her mid back, and Nema's face felt like it was flaring hot... But there wasn't any time to think about this, to dissect it. They had to get out of her apartment, her and Michael and... his dog? Her dog? Their dog?
Once they were out of the apartment building, he was shoving the other end of the leash in her hand. "Stay here."
"What?" Nema's brown eyes were wide as a doe's, blinking fast enough to make her lashes flutter. Did she imagine that rush of red to his black-and-blue face? "I can't, I-"
"You can and you have to." He didn't release her hand until she curled her fingers around the loop. "Thank you. Had so much going on, but he's been on my mind." He looked down, rubbed the top of Max's charcoal gray head, making the dog seem to melt into a half-scrunched pile of smiling pit bull.
Nema managed a smile that felt light and shaky on her lips. "He missed you, so much."
"I missed..." Michael sighed, whipped his head around. "I have to go. Stay here. The police will be here any second. Take their protection." He paused, blue-green eyes holding the gaze of chocolate-brown ones. "... Tell 'em what you need to."
So strange, to still be saying so much with their eyes alone, even though there were no more barriers between them. "You're safe."
"... Holy shit." She watched a smile stretch across his bruised-up face. Wide and... amused. Happy. "That's my line, why the fuck are you saying it?"
God, she'd been shot at twice in one day, been put through an emotional wringer of conflicting doubt and faith... but she sniffed, tilting her chin up in mock-arrogance. "I'm saying it because it's the truth."
He shook his head at her, and that smile faded with a sigh. "I have to go." His mouth opened. Shut. Opened... but whatever he might have wanted to say stayed locked within him, and he carried it away as he hurried into the nearest alley.
"Michael...!" Nema called, Max letting out a single bark in unison, but he didn't stop. Couldn't afford to stop, the telltale red and blue flashes of light finally beginning to reach her. "Just stay alive, okay?"
His boots crunched to an abrupt halt, his shoulders suddenly... tense, though she didn't know why. But there wasn't time to ask, and Michael left, letting the shadows swallow him whole.