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He hadn't planned it like this; he'd just grabbed the opportunity when he saw it. The second Danny realized that the killer had released his dead grip on the bomb's remote to clap his hands, he'd moved by instinct.

Danny grunted as he, using both hands as leverage, grabbed the edge of his wooden table and pushed, turning the heavy piece up side down and on top of the killer.

Everything on the tabletop went crashing to the ground. The knife slid out of the kitchen, coming to stop in the hall facing the front door. The small TV set landed on a mess of sparks and broken glass, while the vodka bottle rolled on the floor, empting its contents, unbroken. The camcorder had lost its LCD screen viewer but the red light was still on.

Donauh, thrown off balanced by Danny's move, had landed on his back, his air knocked out of him by the fall and the weight of the table, as it crashed on top of him.

The remote, Danny's priority at that moment, had fallen to the floor as well, but in the middle of the debris covering the kitchen's floor tiles, he couldn't see where it had landed. He went for the gun instead.

Almost throwing himself at the kitchen's counter, Danny opened the first drawer. His eyes were still frenetically looking for the missing remote as his right hand closed around the empty space were his gun used to be. Danny cursed his bad luck.

The sound of a weapon being cocked made him turned around, already knowing what he would see.

Donauh was red faced with anger and a gash on his left cheek was slowly dripping down his face. He cleaned it in an enraged gesture, using his left sleeve. His right hand was pointing a gun at Danny.

Danny's gun.

"Looking for this?" He snarled. "How stupid can you be, thinking I wouldn't search your place for something like this?" Donauh hissed as he eased one knee to the floor.

Danny wasn't listening. His heart was thumping against his chest like a wild horse, trying to break free from his ribcage. He leaned back against the counter, supporting himself as his legs shook with the adrenalin rush.

The CSI had finally spotted the remote and he almost laughed at the irony. The damn thing had fallen under Donauh when he'd crashed to the floor. Now he could only watch as the killer picked it up again.

"I warned about what would happen if you tried a stunt like this," Donauh sounded like a father, reprehending his misbehaving child.

Danny remembered lying on his bed just a few hours ago, complaining about time moving too slowly. Now, as he faced his failure, time was moving so fast that he could hardly keep up. Donauh's finger was on the remote's button.

"No! Wait! I'll…"

He had no time to talk the killer out of it; he had no chance to offer his life in exchange for his friends' safety. He could do nothing as he watched Donauh pressed the button, knowing that somewhere in the city, a bomb had just detonated and his friends were dead.

Donauh smiled as he saw the desolated look on the young man's face. There was no point in trying to stage a suicide now; he would never manage to make it believable. He raised the gun, ready to finish his job.

Something inside Danny snapped.

The gun's barrel was aimed straight at his chest, but he wasn't seeing the black metal. He knew that the gun was loaded and that at such distance, no one would miss, especially not a professional killer, but his brain wasn't in command anymore.

All he could see was Aiden's smirk, as she teased him about some new girlfriend, whose name he could no longer remember; all he could sense was Stella's motherly touch, as she passed by him in the morning and squeezed his shoulder, asking how he was doing; all he could hear was Mac's voice, laced with disappointment, because he hadn't lived up to the older man's expectations.

He didn't rationalize it. He just reacted.

With his eyes brimming with tears that he refused to shed, Danny threw himself at the killer.

The gunshot sounded like thunder inside the small kitchen. A portion of Danny's brain noticed the blood splatter on his fridge's door and kitchen counter. Somehow he knew that it was his blood, but he could feel no pain.

The killer hadn't expected the move. From his experience, he knew that people always ran away from guns, not throw themselves at them. Next thing he knew, he was looking at his target's kitchen ceiling and had an angry, bleeding man on top of him, cursing, screaming and punching him.

Donauh dropped the remote, using one hand to push Danny off of him, while the other closed around the gun, trying to get a second shot at the struggling man.

Danny felt none of punches from the other man. All he could focus on was getting his hands around the killer's throat and squeeze every bit of life out of him. He wanted the other man to stop breathing. He wanted the other man to pay for the pain he was inflicting on him.

"You stupid motherfucker!" He spat, punctuating each word with a well aimed punch. "You sick, sick sonofabitch!"

Donauh knew that he was running out of time. That shot must've been heard by half of the building and he was sure that, by now, at least ten different calls had already been made to 911. He had seconds to act.

He didn't use guns often. They were too nosy, too traceable and not always safe for those pulling the trigger. As Donauh struggled and managed to turn his right hand enough to point the gun at Danny again, he knew that taking the shot would bring consequences for him too.

He felt his jacket's left sleeve ripping off as the young man yanked his arm around and tried to get the weapon from his hand. Knowing that it was his only chance, Donauh pressed the trigger.

The gun had been too close to his head. His scream of pain was almost simultaneous with the one coming from his target's throat, as the gunpowder burned Donauh's eyes and the discharge left his right ear ringing.

Donauh pushed the other man's dead weight away from him and quickly scrambled to his feet. He looked at the door, fearing it to be kicked open by the police at any minute. He took one look at his victim, making sure that he was dead.

The young man's eyes were closed, his mouth slacked and his lips slightly parted. The left side of his head was a mess of blood and hair and from under the arm that had fallen over the man' stomach, Donauh could see the flow of blood from the previous shot.

A phone was ringing, the sound coming from the living room imposing itself over the ringing inside the killer's ears. Donauh tensed, wondering how many times it'd already ring before.

The answering machine picked it up and the voice of the man he'd just killed filled the silent room.

"I'm not answering, so you know what to do."

The killer grabbed his backpack, quickly fishing for the cloth that he'd used before as a gag. With practiced strokes, he wiped the gun clean and threw it on the floor. Next he grabbed all that he'd brought with him, throwing the remains of the TV set and camcorder inside his backpack.

Taking a deep breath, Donauh took off his ruined jacket, wiped his face clean on it and folded it inside his backpack. He looked down on himself, assessing any visible signs of what he'd done, satisfied that, unless someone took the time to have a good look at him, no one would be able to tell.

His car wasn't parked far, but it was already daytime outside, and he knew it would be a risk to walk even that short distance. A risk that, none the less, he would have to take. The air was still free of police sirens, but he knew that they would be arriving soon.

Taking one last look around, searching for any loose end that he might've missed before, Donauh planted a casual look on his face, shouldered his backpack and left.

The job might've not gone exactly as he'd planned it, but in the end, he'd done what he'd been paid to do.

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