"Mr. Bright!" Malcolm turned to see Edrisa push her way through the crowd gathered in the bullpen to where he stood with Sorcha, Dani, and JT. "You're okay."

Her round face shone with relief and joy. The examiners concern over his well-being touched Malcolm. As it always did when someone showed him an ounce of concern. He tended to appreciate anyone who didn't view him as a nuisance, problem or annoyance. Especially given how his list of supporters was rather on the small side at that moment.

"I'm fine, Edrisa." He smiled as warmly as he could given the tennis balls bouncing around in his stomach. "Thank you."

"When I heard there was someone outside shooting..." Edrisa's eyes behind her glasses went wide as saucers. "Well, I had a feeling they were shooting at you."

A snicker sounded behind him. Malcolm shot Sorcha a look over his shoulder. "Why are you laughing?"

"'Cause most of the shootings in this department have involved you."

"Not all..." he protested.

"Nope, not all." Her dimples winked. "Just most."

"The number of shootings went down while you were on vacation," Edrisa pointed out. Unnecessarily in Malcolm's opinion. "It was really quite boring while you were gone. No exciting cases happened while you were on vacation. Well, I mean murders still happened and all but they were nowhere as interesting as the ones that happen when you aren't on vacation."

"That wasn't a vacation." The words were bitter on his tongue. "It was more a forced lockdown than a vacation."

One imposed on him by his mother and Gil. Neither listened to his pleas. They decided — jointly or separately, it didn't matter to Malcolm — what was best for him without consulting him.

"I know it wasn't Hawaii." Sorcha's fingers curled around his quaking ones. His anchor in the middle of this crimson ocean they found themselves adrift in. Offering comfort and solace. Easing the balls of anxiety and pushing back the miasma wanting to rise into his throat. "But it was still a small slice of paradise to me."

Until he screwed things up between them.

Like he always did.

"Sorch..."

"We can discuss us later." Her fingers squeezed his. Full of promise and silent reassurance. "For now we need to focus on who that shooter was."

"And how they knew to wait here at the precinct for the opportunity to shoot Bright." Dani's face tightened. "Or you." Her gaze met Sorcha's questioning one. "We can't discount you as their target."

"Me?" Sorcha's brow puckered. "Why do you think they'd pick me over Gil, you or JT?"

"Because losing you would hurt Bright the most."

Just the thought of Sorcha being taken from him almost sent Malcolm to his knees. The idea was simply unbearable.

Unimaginable.

Unthinkable.

Unacceptable.

"Losing any one of us would hurt him," Sorcha predictably countered with. "Especially so soon after losing Eve."

That she believed losing her would simply hurt him annoyed Malcolm as much as it stung. Why wouldn't she think that, though? He hadn't exactly put her first for much of their relationship. He routinely pushed her aside for work or people like Eve, who used him for their own advantage and then cast him aside.

He pushed her into the arms of a predatory sociopath.

Almost got her killed.

Had their intimate life exposed.

Almost got her killed... again.

The guilty Malcolm already carried took on more weight. His fault, he realized as phones started ringing around him. It was all his fault. His dad killing twenty-three people, Watkins, Endicott, Robert and Tammy Lynn... all of them came into their lives because of him.

Because he hadn't the sense to stay away from New York.

Or end it once and for all.

Malcolm's head buzzed. His chest constricted. The pit in his stomach burned hotter. None of the things that happened in the last seven months would have if he hadn't been such a coward.

'Fix it now.' The shadow creatures smiled at him from within the caverns of his mind, beckoning him with razor-sharp claws, their red eyes promising the oblivion he sought the other night before Gil showed up to order him placed in cuffs. 'Free them. Free yourself.'

It be easy to do, he realized. So easy.

A few too many of his battalion of pills.

A slice of the wrist from a sharp knife or piece of glass.

A scarf around a doorknob or ceiling fan.

Walking in front of a bus, throwing himself off the roof of a building, taking a nosedive off a bridge.

There were multiple ways he could think of that'd see Sorcha, Gil, his mother and sister, Dani and JT all safe from Endicott.

He just needed the guts to finally see it through.

"The sniper wasn't shooting at either Bright's skinny ass or Bright-Lite."

JT's voice snapped Malcolm back to himself. For the moment, anyway. He freely acknowledged he only had a tenuous grasp on sanity most days. That thread, though, had been steadily unraveling since Watkins told him he and his father planned to kill him on that camping trip.

Any second he expected it to snap and plummet him down into the arms of the dark things waiting in the abyss for him.

"Wait, are you saying Malcolm wasn't the target?" It was a toss-up between which of them was more surprised, him or Sorcha. A frown creased her brow. "The shooter wasn't shooting at him?"

"Or you." A look was all JT needed to part the throng of people still milling around the bullpen. He headed for his and Dani's cubicle once a path opened up. "Not this time, anyway."

Malcolm translated that as meaning another shooter could aim for her next time.

Not happening, he decided as Sorcha's hand tightened on his. I won't let anyone hurt her or anyone else. Not because of me.

"You're positive the shooter wasn't shooting at Malcolm?"

"Or you." JT flicked a mildly amused look at her. "You keep leaving that part out."

"She's like Bright." Dani didn't smile but there was a slight softening to her lips. "Doesn't consider her own safety and well-being."

"I assumed Endicott hired them to kill Malcolm."

Malcolm had assumed the same thing. It made no sense they wouldn't be shooting at him. Not when Endicott was doing everything in his power to keep the truth about his empire from being revealed.

"How do you know for sure they weren't shooting at me or Sorcha?" he questioned JT. "It was chaos out there. How can you know for sure they weren't shooting at us?"

"Cause there's a blood trail outside missing a victim."

Malcolm's eyebrows shot up. "There's a blood trail?"

"By the stairs."

"Only Markinson was shot..." Malcolm frowned. "And he wasn't by the stairs."

"Nope." JT dropped into his chair with a soft grunt. "Means someone other than you and Mini-Bright was the target." He didn't need to add, for once. The look he gave Malcolm said it for him.

"If they weren't shooting at me or Sorcha..." Malcolm's frown deepened. "Who were they shooting at?"

And what is their connection to all this?

"Oh!" Edrisa exclaimed, startling all of them. "I think I might have the answer to that!"

"Edrisa," JT rumbled. "Keep the explanation short for a change."

"Don't be a dick," Dani scolded as Edrisa scurried over to retrieve something from Malcolm's desk. "Every lead we get brings us one step closer to figuring out what the hell is going on."

"Yeah," JT said as he typed something into the computer, "but the clock is ticking."

Edrisa returned, waving a small yellow packing envelope. "A man delivered this for Miss Corbin right before the shooting began."

"For me?" Sorcha's eyes blinked wide. "Who would deliver something to me here at the precinct?"

JT grunted. "Think the better question is why did they deliver it and what is it."

Dani eyed the envelope with a mixture of distrust and disdain. "Last time something was delivered here to the precinct in a yellow envelope..."

"They turned out to be pictures of me and the dope here." Sorcha's face filled with embarrassed color, but she showed no shamed. Unlike Malcolm who prayed for the floor to open up and swallow him. "Not forgotten about those."

"None of us have." JT took the envelope from Edrisa. "Hoping this ain't any appendages..."

"Maybe it's another thumb," came from Edrisa. "Would have a pair then. Of course, they wouldn't be from the same person..."

"Edrisa," came from Gil as he joined them. "Not the time."

"Oh, sorry."

Gil shot a look at the cops who inched forward to see what was in the envelope. Malcolm found himself envious of his ability to command without having to say a single word. Even his mother was more intimidating than him.

"Was there a note with the envelope?" Gil's hand rest on the back of Malcolm's neck, lightly squeezed. Comfort and reassurance. "Anything to suggest who it is from or why they delivered it to Sorcha?"

"Nothing on the front but Mini-Bright's first name."

"Just her first name?" Dani's eyes narrowed. "That suggests they know her."

"Or only know her by her first name," JT pointed out.

Malcolm held his breath as JT slowly peeled open the envelope and looked inside. "Huh." He shook the contents out into his hand. "It's a couple of vials."

"Vials?" Malcolm inched closer despite Gil's fingers tightening on the back of his neck. He couldn't stop himself, though. He needed to see them for himself. "Of what?"

"The blood used to frame you for murder." Sorcha picked up one of the vials. Held it up for them all to see. "My money is on one of these vials containing Eddie Smith's own blood. The other is..."

"The blood they planted to make it look like Mr. Bright did it," Edrisa finished for her in a hushed voice. "Oh, that's good. It'll definitely prove he's not guilty."

"We need to get that blood tested as fast as possible," Gil said. "Edrisa..."

"Not here." Edrisa's sighed as she stared at the vial Sorcha held. "The blood would be sent to an outside lab to be tested."

"It can't be sent out," Malcolm said as he stared at the vials. "Endicott owns the labs we use."

"I know a laboratory we can send the blood too." Sorcha's eyes met Malcolm's. "So do you."

Malcolm's mind stilled as he realized what laboratory she meant. "You think we should ask Raya to test the samples?"

"I don't think we have any other choice, Mal." Her mouth thinned into a cold, hard line. "We don't know how many laboratories Nicholas Endicott owns or has financial stakes in. Pretty safe bet he doesn't have his hooks in either her or the man she was mentored by."

Malcolm was pretty sure he didn't have them on his payroll, too. Asking Raya to run the samples was the only way they could guarantee the results were accurate. Still, he didn't like it. Sending the samples to her officially brought her into the fight.

Not that Raya would mind.

Why would she?

She took down men like Nicholas Endicott on an almost daily basis.

Gotham, after all, had plenty of megalomaniacs running criminal empires.

"She's our last resort option."

"No." Sorcha took the second vial from JT and slid it back into the envelope with the first. "She's our secret weapon."

"Secret weapon?" Dani looked between them, a frown between her eyes. "What're you talking about?"

"They're talking about Doctor Raya Kean." Gil guided Malcolm towards the conference room. "Capable Bright as I call her."

JT snorted a laugh. "She's not a danger prone dumbass?"

"Raya Kean is the danger," was Gil's reply.


A/N: Hello, all! Hope this finds you well!

I just want to send a special thank you to Rookblonkorules and NeoMiniTails for their lovely reviews!