Chapter Title: Choose Life?

Series Title: Unlikely Brothers

Ages in this chapter: Dashen (14)

POV: Dashen

Chapter Summary: Takes place in the year after Kossi's death. Dashen is faced with life and death - but it's not in his power to choose.


I guess it ends like this. Not all that surprised. It's not the exact option

I would have chosen, but could be it's for the best. Life is crap anyway. Waiting for him to pull the trigger. Put me down. Put me out of my depressed misery forever.

Am I scared? I guess. Relieved might be the better choice of words. Part of me can't wait for it to be over - just pull the damn trigger, man! The other part, the one that nibbles at me from time to time - the voice of my dead little brother - that part is seriously thinking about freaking out right about now.

Kossi would want me to fight this ending. He'd not want me to stand here like and idiot and accept my inevitable fate.

But with the life and soul having been sucked out of me since his death, how the hell is continuing to fight even possible?

I'm tired. Exhausted. Mind. Body. Soul. I'm ready for this to end. Right?

I felt myself flinch when the bad guy's hand twitched. He was going on and on about something that no one cared about; how he'd been waiting for so long to put a bolt in my head and how he was living just for this day and other nonsense. Usually it was the guy with the blaster to his head that would be stalling for time, but nope. This time around it was the blaster-er who was apparently feeding his own ego in order to enjoy the build up to my death - more than the actual death itself. Great. More time for my mind to flip flop and decide if it should be scared or not.

Maybe I don't really want to die. Maybe I do. Maybe it's time. Maybe I'm thinking too much as I tend to do. Thoughts going eight different ways, none of them very good.

Bad guy's speech is winding down. I hear it in his tone. Conclusion ahead and there we go. My fate - sealed. Even if I wanted to fight my way out of this, there was no way I'd escape it upright and breathing.

Sorry, little brother. Failing you again. Seems to be my theme as of late. The theme of my life.

I closed my eyes. Accepting the end. Waiting for the end. My breath eased slow and deep. Ready. Done. Bad guy's final words. My final breath.

Then the piercing sound of blaster fire in my ear.

I was falling.

But I wasn't.

A body hit the ground. It wasn't mine. A blaster discharged. It wasn't his.

My green eyes opened, breath rapid now. Bad guy was on the ground. One smoking bolt to the head. Dead. In the distance, someone disappeared around the corner. Big man. Long blond hair. Unnaturally quick for someone his size.

I knew that hair. That Colton guy again. He'd been keeping an eye on me for a while. No idea why. I certainly hadn't asked it of him.

So here I was. Again. Standing alone. Stunned. Confused. Relieved? Hard to tell. Disappointed? Maybe.

I still had no one. I still had a dead baby brother. And I was apparently now on the good side of one of the planet's most well known criminals. Me and my stupid poor excuse for a life.

What the hell was I supposed to do now?


END