Alright my dears, this will be the last chappie for a WHILE, purely because i have an exam in less than a week and i REALLY need to study for a few days,but there WILL be another chapter, there has to be, read this one and you'll see why...Its all verydramatic and theres a bit of confusion(but its on purpose)but all will be explained, the question is, will everyone be around to hear it, and i dont mean the readers(gasp)
Same warnings/Disclaimers.
Please r+r, i lvoe you guys my reviewers you're all ruddy legends!
I am posting this at 6:30 am, HAVING NOT SLEPT ,just so you know, ), so read away, enjoy, love Pie.xxx
"So after I left you…this happened?" Pixie, sitting cross legged on the counter in a nearly empty diner, made a gesture with her hands, taking in Danny's beaten, bruised form.
"Yep" Danny nodded.
"I told you to be careful you didn't bang your shins" Pixie shrugged.
"I don't think you did. But I didn't do this trippin over boxes sweet heart, the guy you where supposed to be following did it" Danny told her.
"Guide did this?" Pixe frowned.
"We think it was him…there was no one else at the theatre that was sober enough" Danny explained.
"Well, shit…I knew I was behind him so I ran on ahead, hoping I'd over take him you know? He usually parks his car around the same place, I headed that way and I ended up waiting for him" Pixie actually slapped her palm to her fore head "He was slower cos he was beatin on you!" she stated "Fuck man, I'm sorry, if I woulda known, I would have helped"
"Helped me or him?" Danny asked her.
"You, you ass" Pixie rolled her eyes.
"Good" Danny said "Listen, we're worried that he might try to come after you…he killed some one else this morning" he told her.
"Who?" Pixie sighed.
Danny handed her a Polaroid he had taken of Luke, the latest victim.
"Vincent….as in, Vincent Price…" she said sadly.
"His real name was Luke" Danny told her.
"Why are you worried about me?" Pixie handed the picture back, frowning.
"If Guide is our guy, which we think he is, he was making an awful big deal of tryna get you to go with him last night…this morning….whatever…if he's escalatin to the point where he's killin more people than he normally would, he might try comin after you" Danny told her "I want you to come with me, back to the lab…we can keep you safe there" he told her.
Pixie wrinkled her nose "Can we eat first?" she asked.
Danny leaned forward a little "Scuze me?" he asked her.
"Can we eat? You look like you need good food and this place? Does good food" she grinned at him.
Danny turned and glanced at the plain clothes officer who had accompanied him "You wanna eat?" he asked the guy.
"What ever" the officer shrugged.
"Fine, we eat" Danny shook his head incredulously.
Pixie smiled and leaned back slightly "Sam, three cheese burgers with everything and three shakes" she yelled.
There was a muffled response and Pixie slid off the counter, walking over to a booth by the window.
Danny and the officer joined her and before long, a monster of a man with hair down to his waist, held back from his face with hair clips carried their orders out to them.
As the bear/man walked away, Pixie smiled affectionately after him "That's Sam, he's good people" she told Danny and the officer.
They made idle conversation as they ate, until they where interrupted by Danny's cell phone.
He listened to his phone for a minute or so before rising from his seat "We have to go now" he snapped.
"What's wrong?" Pixie asked.
"Nox, the detective on the case, he just got hit by a car, they're saying he's cant move below the neck" Danny said gravely, speaking more to the other officer than to Pixie.
"Shit" the guy muttered, rising to his feet and digging the car keys out of his pocket.
He headed out for the car as Pixie and Danny followed, Pixie telling him they didn't have to pay the bill, but not why.
They climbed into the jeep with the officer and Danny gave him the address Mac had given him, the sight of Nox's accident.
No one spoke as the car travelled through the rain, but in the back seat, Pixie played with her butterfly knife, it's 'snick snick' sound accompanying the thrumming of the windscreen wipers the odd melody serving as a soundtrack for the grim journey.
Danny was sitting in the back of the ambulance, watching Nox as the paramedic drew the end of a pen up the inside of Nox's foot.
Nox curled his toes and jerked his foot away, the look on his face, the relief mingled with fear, was almost painful to look at.
He was slumped in the raised stretcher, looking exhausted. There was a cut over his eye, leading into a graze that crawled down over his cheek bone and jaw line.
Mac, standing in the door way in the back of the ambulance looked angry again "How's it lookin Ken?" he asked the paramedic.
"He complained of total numbness in his extremities when we arrived but it seems to be gone now" Ken stated "We where reluctant to move him cos of how he was laying but then his hands start twitching…"
"It was there, I couldn't move" Nox said raggedly, his voice hoarse.
"The driver's saying you ran out in front of him" Mac said, not accusingly, simply repeating the facts.
"Why would I be stupid enough to run in front of a car? I was going…numb, from the feet up, I fell" Nox told him, angry not at Mac, which Mac understood, just the misplaced anger that often accompanied fear.
"Wait you where numb before the car hit?" Danny frowned.
Nox nodded slowly.
"How did it start?" Mac asked.
"I was in the elevator and I thought my foot had gone asleep…and it just got worse…by the time I was in the street it was in my arms, my legs where dead weight" Nox was leaning against the wall of the ambulance, shivering despite the thick blanket that had been laid over him.
"Nox…your records say when you got hurt back in Boston…you where paralysed?" Mac asked.
"It was just while I healed up, it was muscle damage" Nox stated "They wouldn't let me back on the street properly after I went back to work, they where scared I'd take a hit, get paralysed for real and sue…another reason I left…but after I got better I never had any reason to feel like I was still…hurt like that…"
"Until today" Ken said "Look man I'm not saying you're making it up but there's no sign of what you're talking about, you seem totally fine…I mean, other than the injuries from the car" Ken have a small smirk and Nox matched it "Luckily, you seem to have avoided any serious injury in that respect, you didn't lose consciousness but I still want you to get checked out. It was a car that hit you after all"
"It's not gonna start being funny" Pixie, who until then had been sitting beside Danny, stated "Unless, he thinks it is" she nodded toward Nox.
"I would think the car is funny if not for the rest" Nox assured her.
Pixie's curling black hair was once again mostly hidden beneath a black hood, her eyes where surrounded by smudged black make up. She wore, with her hooded t-shirt, red cords and black sneakers and her usual collection of silver jewellery.
"Have you felt any pain in your back, any kind of…pre emptive signs, other numbness?" Ken asked.
"No" Nox muttered.
He was slowly making fists with his hands, opening and closing them compulsively as if he was afraid to stop, afraid of what it could mean if he couldn't do it any more.
"The guy gave me coffee" he said softly as is only just remembering it.
"What?" Mac stepped into the ambulance.
"I went up to an apartment on the eight floor, one of the addresses for the car, the guy there…he gave me a coffee, I drank it…I started feeling weird right after" Nox sat up slightly in the bed and froze, groaning in pain.
"Yeah, you might have been numb all over when the car hit you, but now, you're not, so don't go moving around a whole bunch huh?" Ken scolded.
"Damn it that hurts" Nox gasped.
"Yeah, well, car" Ken 'duh'd'
"What address?" Mac asked.
Nox reached for his pocket, biting back groans of pain the whole time, pulling the sheet from it.
"The kid up there, Drew, he was studying anthropology text books before I got there, and he lied to me about Daniel Holker, the dude who owns the place, and he lied about recognising the photo-fit, he's just asking us to look closer at him" Nox told them.
Danny took the sheet "Third address down" Nox told him.
"I'll take a look" Mac told him.
Danny looked over at him "I can do it Mac" he frowned.
"Danny, no offence but right now the two of you need take a step back from this case, in two days…not even that, on the same day, two of my officers have almost been killed working this case, I would like for you both to take have some rest, even if it means you're sitting around the lab, if we're gonna catch this guy, you need to be able to walk and breathe" Mac snapped "Why don't you go to the hospital with Nox for now, have the doctor take a blood sample just in case Nox was dosed, and I'll meet you back at the lab"
"What about me?" Pixie asked.
"You might as well stay with these two for now" Mac gave her a small smile "I realise bringing you in to protect you and then leaving you with the two least physically able officers on the force might seem kind of stupid, but for the time being you'll be safer with these two, I'm gonna be dealing with suspects…" Mac explained.
"No problem" Pixie smiled back at him "I think the fact that Danny personally came to get me and the Boston boy just actually tried to get up out of bed kinda speaks in their favour, considering how beat up they are and all" She shrugged.
Mac nodded "Ken be careful with em? The way this day's going you guys'll get in a car wreck on the way there"
"Thanks, I feel so much safer" Pixie dead panned, making the assembled cops and medics laugh.
Nox was sitting cross legged on a hospital bed, playing poker with Pixie.
She had located a pack of cards but it was unclear where from. Nox had been x-rayed, cat scanned, poked and prodded until the doctors where sure there was no sign of the paralysis, no serious injury from the accident.
He had broken ribs, a concussion, a cracked bone in his wrist no one had noticed on the scene and dozens of little cuts and bruises that the doctor had assured him would probably be painful for longer than any of the larger injuries.
Danny was sitting beside the bed, Nox's clothes, a blood sample and a small collection of trace evidence in his kit beside him.
They where waiting for a doctor to discharge Nox but the man was taking his time about something so all they could do was wait. It was late afternoon, but Danny felt as if it had been days since his own injuries, the lack of sleep and everything that had happened, stretching the hours out.
"You realises you owe me upward of three grand?" Pixie asked Nox sweetly.
"You realise I could arrest you just for playing this game?" Nox smirked.
"You realise you're playing with grapes in place of chips or money, and you've both eaten like what, six grands worth of your 'money' any way?" Danny asked them.
"We're living the high life" Nox smirked, popping a handful of grapes into his mouth.
"Should we even have food in here?" Danny looked around the small private room.
"Probably not…but we washed em with the sterilised water" Nox told him.
Danny frowned but it turned into a smile as Nox and Pixie simultaneously tossed grapes at him.
"Get outta here!" he yelled good naturedly, "That's wasteful"
"Quit ya bitchin" Pixie muttered "When can we go? I wanna go see your lab and play with chemicals"
"They don't let you play with the chemicals, bastards" Nox chuckled "We can have fun taking your fingerprints though?" he gave her an odd look.
"Not gonna happen buster" she smirked.
"Maybe we'll take em with out you payin attention" Danny raised an eyebrow at her.
"I'm always paying attention" Pixie shot back.
The door to the room opened and a typically white coated doctor walked in "Well I'm not happy about this but other than my own opinion...there's no real reason to keep you here…I guess you can go" he shrugged.
"Woo hoo" Nox muttered as Pixie swung her legs off the bed.
Nox was dressed similarly to what Danny had worn earlier, hospital scrubs, his facial wounds had been cleaned and covered with gauzes and his wrist was wrapped in a light weight.
"You two…" Pixie regarded the bruised, beaten cops, "Just…bah" She chuckled.
"What?" Danny frowned, realising Stella had acted similarly earlier.
"You make a habit outta getting this hurt?" she asked.
"Not…not like on purpose" Nox shrugged "It just kinda…happens"
"We're just dedicated is all" Danny muttered "Besides I don't know him all that well so don't go lumping me in with him, he's from Boston" Danny gave Nox a smirk "They're just born trouble makers"
"This from you? Please" Nox shook his head.
"What ever" Danny shook his head, "Get your asses in the car" he held to door to the room open for them so they could walk out, feeling some how slightly more at ease around them than he had of late. There was an oddly sibling like quality to the way Pixie and Nox interacted and while it made Danny sad, reminding him of what he was standing to lose if Louie didn't pull through, he also kid of liked that he was part of the banter and interaction. It was familiar some how, as if Nox and Pixie where some kind of alternate versions of-Danny realised, as if they where odd versions of Flack and Aiden. He frowned as he followed them out of the room, unsure whether he was happy with what he had just realised, but unsure also if he was all that unhappy with it. He didn't want to replace his friends 'fuck no' his mind provided, but having that same kind of banter was…just, nice.
They waited around for Nox to sign some forms, take a prescription of some painkiller or another in a paper bag, holding his gun, wallet and other personal belongings awkwardly.
Pixie offered to take his gun and he raised an eye brow at her "Come on, you'll drop it and shoot my leg off otherwise" she stated.
Nox made a point of tying the drawstring of the hospital pants as tight as he could, clipping his gun to one side of them, lifting his badge and revealing a chain tucked behind it which he clearly intended to lift over his head but hesitated painfully.
"You have to had broken ribs before?" Danny asked "lifting you arms, it hurts, that's why I'm wearin a friggin dress shirt" he stated, motioning to the dark red shirt he wore with dark jeans.
"Yeah, I have, thanks" Nox snapped but it was with a grim smirk "I just…forgot"
"How did you forget?" Danny frowned.
"They say most humans forget any serious pain they suffer, or at least, can never ever remember it exactly the way it felt when it happened…supposedly, if a woman could remember exactly how painful childbirth is, the human race would be something like an eighth of the size it is now because no woman would ever have had more than one kid each…well, maybe not right now cos of drugs but…" Pixie shrugged "If we all remembered how painful some stuff can be none of us would ever leave the house"
Danny considered it while Nox nodded in agreement.
Pixie took the badge from him and rose on tip toe to lift it over his head, eventually having to hop to do so.
"Shortie" Nox muttered.
"Bean pole from bean town" she shot back.
"The pair of you are stupid, I'm the best" Danny smirked.
They shot him matching dramatically un amused looks "Why be childish?" Nox asked seriously.
"Why cheapen it?" Pixie frowned.
Danny grinned his Cheshire Cat grin at them both and walked past them to the hospitals main doors.
He was trying to make for a smooth exit but both he and Nox where too beat up to do anything more than pace painfully toward the doors while Pixie, giggling all the way, walked along behind them.
Nox was still fumbling with his belongings and handed Pixie his cell phone, asking her to carry it for him until they where in the car. She pocketed the phone as they silently, painfully walked along.
"You guys doin okay?" she asked them.
"Shut up, you try getting beat on by a serial killer or hit by a car some time" Danny told her.
"Been there, done that, sold the t-shirt for taxi fare" Pixie singsonged as they walked out the doors.
While she and Danny had waited for Nox to be x-rayed and scanned, a uniformed cop sent by Mac had arrived having driven one of the jeeps to the hospital. He had handed off the keys to Danny then left with his partner, who had followed him there in their patrol car.
The jeep was parked across the mostly devoid of humans parking lot, further than seemed sensible considering that the cop knew Danny and Nox where hurt, but Danny also remembered the cop being one of the handful who still gave him shit over the Minhas Subway shooting. He was lucky the guy had even parked the car in the immediate vicinity of the hospital.
"So when we get to the lab I really can't play with the chemicals?" Pixie was asking.
Danny turned to smile at her and when the blow came it took him on the side of the head rather than on the back of his neck. He staggered and was hit again as Pixie shouted and as Nox turned 'Doctor Guide' darted toward him, smashing the handle of the baseball bat into Nox's ribs so hard that Nox couldn't even cry out in pain, he simply dropped to the floor, gasping in agony. It was the same thing Danny's attacker had done, as if he knew exactly where to hit either through being told or watching the way Nox moved.
Pixie ran at him, reaching for her pocket but Guide turned almost inhumanly fast, wrapping one massive hand around her neck.
Danny raised his gun but froze when he saw that Guide had Pixie by the throat, holding her close to his body.
He had the bat in one hand, holding it over Nox's prone form, half raised, ready to swing at his ribs again. He looked strong enough to do some severe damage with it, even with one hand.
"You're all coming with me" Guide hissed, his sandy brown matted to his head by the rain "Put the gun down or I smash his ribs into his lungs"
"Buddy, I have a gun" Danny stated the obvious "You even just said ya self"
"And shooting at me means shooting through her" Guide shook Pixie, pissing her off if her face was anything to go by.
"She's a lot smaller than you" Danny pointed out.
"They way I'm holding her neck, you could shoot me through the eyes, my hand spasms and she's dead" Guide shook his head.
"I call bull shit" Nox groaned from the floor, his own hand sliding toward his hip.
Guide did something with his hand that made Pixie gasp, her face crumpling in pain.
She squirmed, one hand reaching for her pocket, the other grabbing instinctively at Guide's hand, trying to pry his fingers lose.
Danny, kneeling awkwardly, his gun held steady regardless, gritted his teeth "Stop it, let her go"
Guide stopped what ever he was doing and Pixie relaxed minutely, starting to shiver.
"Put down your gun or I snap her neck" Guide growled.
Danny kept his eyes on Guide but in his peripheral vision he could see Nox slowly reaching for his gun, getting ready to draw it.
Without blinking, Guide raised the bat and brought it down again, crunching it into Nox's side. As Nox opened his mouth to scream Guide dropped to a crouch, dropping the bat, dragging Pixie with him, clamping one hand over Nox's mouth and nose, simultaneously muffling his scream, holding him down as he tried to writhe in pain and, Danny realised, concealing himself behind the few cars there where in the lot.
Faintly, Danny heard the sound of approaching people, their voices carrying over the rain, but in such a way that Danny wasn't sure how close they where.
"Put it down or I kill her, I kill him, and I kill the cute little family of four that just walked out of the hospital, mommy, daddy and two little kiddies" Guide sneered.
"You're lyin" Danny growled, his mind racing.
"You don't know that….the kids are a boy and a girl, he's about five, she's a toddler, got a cast on her arm, probably her first big fall…I'll kill her right in front of you" Guide smiled cruelly.
"I'll put a bullet in you before you can move" Danny hissed.
"You seriously underestimate me" Guide shook his head.
"Pixie is there a family?" Danny asked the uncomfortably crouched girl.
"I couldn't see, I'm sorry" she told him.
"That's okay kid" Danny assured her.
She moved so fast even Guide didn't realise until the blade from that damned butterfly knife sank into the skin of his arm and she wrenched it downward, twisting it at the same time, tearing open a gouge in his arm with what looked to Danny like scarily natural efficiency.
Guide, some how, managed not to scream, shoving her away as she dragged the knife out, pushing her hard enough that she fell forward but caught herself, the bloody blade still in hand.
As Danny began to move forward Pixie was already rising and turning, the knife ready but Guide snaked a hand out lighting fast and Nox's gun was suddenly gripped in his good hand and pressed against the felled detectives chest, directly over his heart.
"You ever see what a bullet does to an apple?" he asked wildly "It has roughly the same effect on the human heart, only when they shoot the apple it doesn't have quite the same…fatal outcome"
"Pixie?" Danny, who had frozen in his motion forward asked of the girl who was poised in an odd crouch, half turned around.
"He's squeezing the trigger almost all the way" she hissed.
"I will do it" Guide said, and he meant it, he truly meant it.
"This isn't like you Guide" Danny stated "Usually you're more the…what, a quiet dark room some where? You're that guy"
"Usually I don't have cops coming to my home" Guide spat disgustedly as if some how, the idea was offensive to him "All those police outside!"
"Shit, we didn't even know for sure it was your apartment, you just made the case for us, dick head" Danny spat.
Guide faltered ever so slightly but the gun never wavered. Nox's eyes where angry and scared over the top of Guide's now bloody hand. Guide had his thumb raised so Nox could breath, but with his injured ribs restricting how much he could breath in anyway, mixed with the panic he had to be feeling, it was safe to say he wasn't getting a lot of air.
"That family must be long gone Guide, put down your gun, you aint gonna shoot him, you know what'll happen to you if you do" Danny warned "This is New York, you kill a cop…" He trailed off, letting the threat, no, the promise of how Guide would suffer, speak for itself.
"Don't you want to sleep?" Guide asked, his voice suddenly calm, so much so that Danny had to back track in his head to see if he'd just missed the time when he talked the guy down "I could help you sleep…I can see how tired you are, look at you, even now, you're exhausted" Guide said sympathetically.
"Careful" Pixie said warningly.
"I'm exhausted right now cos I'm hurt, its cold and wet, I haven't slept thanks to you and I'm holding a gun up when I got broken ribs, pain takes it outta ya" Danny sneered.
"But what about before…you wheren't lying at the meeting, about how much you don't sleep, I could see it, you…you need me" Guide's voice was soothing.
"I need to get over my fear of Nightol" Danny told him.
"It wouldn't just be sleep…I could make you forget what's keeping you awake, the person who died, all gone, out of your head" Guide smiled.
Something in Danny's head clicked and he had to fight not to squeeze the trigger there and then "I don't want to forget" he said quietly.
"You will….when you see how much easier it is if you just let go" Guide said.
"Drop the gun, do it now" a voice behind Danny said and he felt the cold edge of a knife slide across his neck.
"Drew" Guide smiled, his tone one of relief "Took you long enough"
"I'm here now" Drew said from inches behind Danny.
Danny realised there must have been some kind of tactic to Guide's speeches, a distracting technique.
"I'm not putting my gun down till he puts his down" Danny stated.
"I'll slice your throat man" Drew rumbled.
Danny was starting to realise what Nox had meant the day before when he had spoke of how you cant not react to a knife at your throat. It was taking every ounce of effort he had not to drop the gun and grab for the guys hand. He could feel his ribs throbbing with pain, his arms beginning to whine as they cramped from holding his gun for so long.
The rain was giving him a head ache...or making one he already had worse, he couldn't tell. His eyes ached and felt itchy and dry, his legs where complaining, he could feel the dry hacking build of a cough and probably a bout of flu in his chest, he was exhausted, physically just done, but knew he was not going to sleep tonight no matter what happened in the here and now, he could sense it, some how he was aware his brain was not yet ready to shut down, his finger around the trigger was twitching in a way he was worried would impair his aim, he was scared for Nox, for Pixie and for himself, and there, constantly there, like a backing track to everything, three names where racing through his mind, like they had been for months 'Louie, Flack Aidan' their order irrelevant their simple presence, the meaning behind them enough. Danny actually had to marvel that even as he stood with a knife to his throat, holding his gun on a serial killer who in turn held a gun on another cop while a twenty year old apparent street kid crouched with her own knife ready to strike the serial killer, either unaware of or unable to divert her attention to the guy on Danny, with his body simply one giant nerve cluster of pain, through all of this…Danny was still thinking about Louie, Aidan and Flack. He wanted to sleep. He wanted to forget about everything and just sleep, he wanted to drop the gun, walk away, find a bed and simply drift away to some where were he didn't have to worry for once, just once since his life was derailed by Sonny fucking Sassone and his stupid gang of idiot friends with their delusions of grandeur.
He wanted to lie in a bed, any bed and close his eyes and feel that wash of darkness, soothing darkness that was somehow lost to him, he wanted to dream, because he knew he would dream about Louie being okay, about Aidan being okay but it wouldn't be sad it would be comforting, it would be what he needed to help him, and he knew the more he did it the easier it would be to rest because he knew what was waiting for him when he did. And he knew, standing in that lot, that even if he could do that, just go and find a bed and lay down…he wouldn't sleep. He could feel it, the way you can feel a slight twinge in your head and know, just know it's going to be a full blown migraine within a matter of hours.
He edged his foot forward and nudged Pixie, sensing her tense even further, if that where possible until she was almost humming like a tightly wound guitar string. He had nudged her leg and he felt her flex the muscle as if returning his nudge and he raised his toe against her leg and they moved, Danny jerking his arms back, elbowing Drew's arm from beneath, turning to his own right so he was facing Drew, grabbing the knife hand with one hand and pressing his gun to Drew's forehead, wheeling the guy back around so he faced Guide in time to see that Pixie had faked left then dove for the gun, having to fall across Nox to grab it.
Nox had grabbed Guide's arm as Pixie had moved, managing to twist it away slightly. Pixie jabbed at Guide's injured arm with her knife and it was then that Drew hit Danny with his free hand, a sudden, expert, sharp blow to the ribs that stole the air from Danny's lungs in a wash of pain. The guy moved, snake like again and wrapped a hand around Danny's some how managing to turn Danny so Danny had his back to Drew and his own arms where crossed over his chest, one hand gripping Drew's knife hand, the other being gripped by Drew, gun and all.
Danny figured 'fuck it'
He slammed his head backwards, feeling the crunch as he broke Drew's nose, the movement some how causing Drew to squeeze Danny's wrist in a way that made him automatically drop his gun.
He saw that Pixie had raised her own knife and pressed it to Guide's throat but Guide reached up with his injured arm, still moving as terribly fast as he was capable of and grab a handful of her hair, dragging her to the side, abandoning Nox's gun in favour of grabbing for Pixie's knife.
Nox moved instantly, snatching his own gun as Guide managed to drag Pixie so she was almost prone on her back on the ground, pushing her arm down so she had her own knife at her throat.
Nox pressed the muzzle of the gun to the back of Guide's neck, yelling at him to drop the knife, making as much noise as he could.
Danny recalled being a kid, fighting with Louie, Louie holding him the way Drew now did, restraining him with his own arms, the left crossed under the right, similar to how a straight jacket would.
Although it agonised his beaten body to do so, Danny dropped to a crouch so his crossed arms raised over his head. He turned to his right, turning completely so that he not only faced Drew, but Drew's arms where now crossed. It took less than a second.
Danny smiled to himself as he remembered the countless times he'd escaped Louie that way, his older brother never being able to figure out how Danny had done it.
Drew wore a look of confusion and frustration as Danny stepped close and head butted him again in the nose, staggering him.
Taking a chance, Danny released Drew's empty hand and in a fluid motion, grabbed his cuffs off his belt, slapping them on Drew in the blink of an eye.
He pulled the knife smoothly from Drew's hand as he swept the big guys legs out from under him, sending him sprawling.
A gun shot made him flinch and he span to see Nox slump to his side, blood on his head, Guide some how holding the gun.
Pixie was motionless on the ground, her face turned away from Danny but he could see blood on her throat and the sight of them both, so still, made Danny pause, the thoughts of them he'd had earlier, of them reminding him so much of Aidan and Flack, of the comforting feeling of the idle chatter and teasing they'd all been throwing around, the thought it was already gone again paralysed Danny where he stood and Guide stepped forward and grabbed him by the arms, dragging Danny close like a bully who's gotten his victim.
Danny couldn't think, couldn't speak as Guide pulled him backwards, bending, still gripping Danny's arm to pick something up. He backed Danny up until Danny felt his back press against what must have been a car, but he still couldn't bring himself to act as Guide placed that hand over his mouth, squeezing it painfully.
It was shock, pure and simple, at seeing two new friends, two people he'd unintentionally connected with so suddenly slain. He was staring into Guide's crazed eyes, knowing his own where blank as he began to feel the effects of the lack of air, his lungs starting to ache. Oddly, his body was expecting the break, the release in pressure so he could snatch a few breaths, as if he where an old pro at being torturously smothered to death but it never came and he felt the cold blade of the knife, which Guide must have picked up, press against his throat.
Guide leaned in close "Usually I have to give them tea…you though…you're just giving up aren't you? You want so badly to just sleep" he hissed from inches away.
Some how, that switch in Danny's brain clicked again and he grabbed Guide's hand suddenly, panic tearing through the detached calm that had reigned, unadulterated fear right behind it.
Guide pressed on the knife and Danny began to scream behind Guide's hand as he felt the edge of the blade begin to cut through skin and he could feel the blood on his neck, and he could feel that Guide, he wasn't stopping there, he was pushing harder and he was going to cut Danny's throat, really cut it, not just that slice, and Danny wasn't sure what was going to kill him first, the blood loss or the suffocation because his lungs where screaming for air and he was seeing those black spots again and now the screaming lungs and the black spots and the pain from his throat and from all over his body and the sheer exhaustion of it all where rolling together and he couldn't discern which was which but he was glaring into Guide's eyes as the blackness seemed to win out and Guide faded from his view and he thought he heard a series of muffles pops, an effect of the suffocation some remarkably calm part of his brain pondered and he felt himself go and then there was nothing at all but the darkness.
