Project Gemini (WATTYS 2016 WINNER!)

Chapter Nine - What Lies Beneath. (Part 2 of 2).

His aura withdrew from the air to cocoon his chest. Binds of gold latched to his bruises, smothering the beaten patches of skin like an elastic band waiting to snap. 

She jerked the knife at him as her chest ached, a flare of purple dying at her fingertips. It burst bright for a second, then drained towards him, clashes of gold and purple lashing against each other. She stumbled and looked around her desperately, two side shoots split off from here, one downhill the other uphill. He was stronger, and for a split second she wished the knife were a gun.

"I have a family." 

"And I have a duty," he said. "My duty is to protect, and to stop anyone from betraying our kind." 

"I'm not part of your kind."

"You're a Pariah."

"I'm here for justice," she said. "I have a plan, a way out."

"And the second your puppeteer is done with you? That moment he puts a bullet in your brain and tosses you to the side to use the next one? What makes you so special that you think he'll keep his word?" 

She bit her lip, but didn't say anything. There wasn't anything to say. He smirked as she focused hard, fighting through the headache to cast another burst of energy at him but he barely budged.

"You're too late for her," he said quietly, "days too late."  

He stepped forwards and she stepped back, keeping the distance between them. He let the chains fall with a clatter, only one loop attached to his ankles, and moved into the firelight. His raw feet blistered and sore, patches of hot angry missing skin exposed, but he stepped evenly onto the broken glass. No pain on his face, immune to it, and let it crunch under his weight. He held his palms outwards, his fingernails twisting. Small droplets of blood running along his soles and between his toes as her heart thundered in her chest.

Oh fuck.

The floodgate groaned, a monstrous wail of metal fighting the pounding pressure as water started to burst and hiss from the rivets that held it in place. Thin streams gushed from the base as it pressurized, the mechanical gears not quite holding, as the streams churned the black waters beneath them. Her mouth went dry as she lunged for the railings, desperation clawed inside of her as she let her power flare from her fingertips. This was it. 

00:17.a.m.  

"Please," she begged. "We're running out of time."  

"I'm not going anywhere. I didn't kill that politician, someone else beat me to it and silenced the bastard. They did the job. They put him down like a dog. But you shouldn't have come here, I can't let you leave with him."

She froze. Shit.

He cracked a grin, "What sort of witness protection sends the witness to hunt the killers? Ha! The famed Detective, the man in the hat, London's joke. Yet he's the name in my head. That fucking name I can't forget. Over and over and over again like a broken record."

"What the hell are you talking about?" 

His eyes flashed, "The names. The list of names buried into my head. My memories are gone, days missing, and all I can remember is those men and women talking in the shadows, needles and handcuffs and distant screams—" he pounded his ribs with his fists, biting his lips until they bled, "—and those fucking names."

She squeezed the SOS signal on her GPS bracelet, almost tripping as her foot tipped over the lip to the stairs. Her hands sweated on the railings as her legs trembled. Hurry the hell up, Kingsley.