by Abigail Roux
Shawn was beside himself with grief, and Thiago turned just in time to see
the man slump down in the seat and reach for the pocket in his pants leg. Thiago
always kept a backup gun in that pocket. Whether Shawn did or not didn’t need to be discovered at that point. Thiago crawled over the seat and practically tackled Shawn, pinning his arms to his side and reaching into the pocket to retrieve what Shawn had been after.
“M’not gonna kill meself,” Shawn murmured weakly as Thiago looked at the
cell phone in relief.
“Brandt, get us home,” Thiago ordered over his shoulder.
“Was gonna call Niko… I shot him, Thi,” Shawn said dazedly as he looked
up at Thiago.
Thiago repositioned himself so that he was kneeling in the back seat and he
pulled Shawn to him. Shawn clung to him and shook violently.
“I killed him. He stepped into it. I fucking killed him.”
Thiago held Shawn tight as his own tears threatened. He had faith in Gray,
though. Gray would take care of Remy just as well as they would have had he been
with them.
If he was still alive.
XXXIV.
NIKOLAUS’S anguished cry roused Carl from his fitful sleep, and they listened
together in horror as the drama unfolded. Carl hovered over Nikolaus’s shoulder,
listening intently to the muffled sounds of traffic and hushed sobbing coming through the speakers.
“Tell me I’m hearing things,” Carl muttered dazedly. Nikolaus shook his
head in response and turned the speakers up to the max. Carl could hear Thiago
murmuring to Shawn in the car, but he couldn’t make out what was being said. “Can you close in on Dixie’s comm?” Carl asked quietly.
Nikolaus’s hand moved automatically to fiddle with the dials, and soon they
could hear snatches of Gray’s voice as he begged Remy to stay conscious. The final words they heard uttered were, “… he’s dead you… you hear this… bastards….”
Carl blinked and tried to shake away the haze of the drugs, but his world was
still fuzzy and confusing.
The Archer 361
Abigail Roux
“Did he say dead?” Nikolaus asked disbelievingly. “Did he say….”
Carl nodded and sat down with a thump in the chair beside Nikolaus. They
sat in a daze for what seemed an eternity, and the next thing they knew the door to the flat was thrown open and Thiago and Brandt entered, dragging Shawn between them.
“What the hell happened out there?” Nikolaus screamed almost before the
door clicked shut.
“I killed him,” Shawn murmured as Thiago shoved him roughly toward the
sofa.
Thiago turned on Nikolaus and growled wordlessly. Carl could tell the man
was seriously fucked off, and he wondered how much of his mood was from despair.
Shawn had obviously lost any composure he had left, and Brandt was in shock as
well. Carl watched the big man trudge to the sofa and sit beside Shawn dejectedly.
Carl and Nikolaus came over to stare at them in shock.
“Did you hear anything?” Thiago asked quietly as Carl came up to stand
beside him. He gestured toward Nikolaus’s command station. “Your frequency was
stronger than ours, yes?”
“He’s dead,” Carl answered quietly, hoping Shawn and Brandt wouldn’t hear
him. They did, however, and a choked little sob drew Carl and Thiago’s attention.
Nikolaus sat down hard on the closest piece of furniture, tears flowing freely,
and Brandt let his head fall into his hands. Shawn sat in a daze, rocking slightly.
Thiago paled visibly when Carl spoke the words.
“How do you know? Are you sure?” Thiago demanded.
“Kincaid so much as told us,” Carl said flatly as he watched Shawn and
Brandt sympathetically. Thiago clutched the back of the sofa as if for support and lowered his head dejectedly.
Carl was trying not to think of Remy. If he thought of Remy, the easy smile,
the gentle brown eyes, the undying devotion… if he thought of those things, he was going to cry. And Carl wasn’t supposed to cry.
“I had him,” Brandt said softly through the mask of his hands, his voice
wavering. “He was right there.”
Carl swallowed hard and forced back the tears. He was not going to cry.
“I killed him,” Shawn repeated in the same soft, lost voice.
Carl’s vision blurred and he blinked away the tears. Finally, he brought his
hand up and wiped at his eyes. When he lowered his hand again, he shouted in alarm as Shawn moved with lightning quick speed and reached for the handgun Brandt had
in the holster beneath his jacket.
“No!” Thiago and Carl shouted together.
362 The
Archer
Abigail Roux
Shawn shoved at Brandt as the bigger man tried to retrieve the weapon, and
stood up with the gun clutched in his hand.
“Shawn,” Thiago said warily as he and Carl instinctively spread out and tried
to surround the grieving man. “Shawn, put down the gun.”
“I killed him, Thi,” Shawn said sadly as he shook his head slowly. “I killed
Remy. What the hell do I have left?”
“Beignet, put down the gun,” Brandt said in a low soothing voice as he got
slowly to his feet. He put out a hand as if to calm a spooked horse and took a tentative step forward. Carl continued on his circuitous route, trying to get behind Shawn as the other two distracted him.
Shawn shook his head and went about checking that the weapon was loaded
while still managing to keep a suspicious eye on Thiago and Brandt.
“Shawn, come on, you’ve still got us, yeah?” Nikolaus pleaded as he stood
nervously to the side. “Please put down the gun.”
“Shawn,” Brandt whispered, his voice close to pleading.
Carl actually froze and looked at Brandt in surprise. Shawn froze as well, his
fingers clutching the gun so tightly that his knuckles were white and his hand was shaking. His whole body was shaking, in fact.
“Please, Shawn,” Brandt continued as he crept closer. “Everything I said the
other night… I didn’t mean it. I need you here, Shawn. We need you here.”
“I killed him, Brandt,” Shawn said as he cocked the gun and looked at it
pensively. If one of them tackled him now the fucking thing would probably go off and kill one of them. Carl had already been accidentally shot once. He didn’t relish a second helping just yet. “First I crushed him,” Shawn murmured. “And then I fucking killed him.”
“No!” Brandt cried as Shawn lifted the gun to his temple.
Thiago and Carl moved at the same time and grabbed for the man. His gun
hand was forced up and the gun went off, the bullet tearing through the ceiling and spraying plaster all over them as they tackled Shawn to the ground. Thank God they were on the top floor.
Brandt spread his body over Shawn’s and held him down as Carl and Thiago
struggled to pry the gun from Shawn’s hand.
Several minutes later, Shawn was tied to a chair and complaining loudly
about it. Brandt was kneeling in front of him, trying to calm him.
“What now?” Nikolaus asked with difficulty.
Thiago opened his mouth to speak, but Brandt stood up suddenly and turned
on them all, like a tiger preparing to pounce.
The Archer 363
Abigail Roux
“We have to find him,” he growled.
“Wally,” Carl said miserably.
“We can’t give up on him until we know for sure. Not
until he’s here with us
again. Dead or alive,” Brandt said as tears flowed silently down the sides of his face.
Shawn looked up at them all hopefully.
Thiago started to object, but upon seeing the desperate look in Shawn’s eyes,
he snapped his mouth shut and looked at the rest of them somewhat nervously.
“Right then,” Thiago said resignedly. “I think… I think it’s about time I told
you all–”
The only sounds the shot made were the shattering of the sliding glass doors
and the dull thud when it hit its target.
Carl grabbed Nikolaus and forced him to take cover on the ground as another
shot found its mark. He shielded Nikolaus with his body and looked over at the
others. Brandt dragged Shawn, chair and all, to the ground and covered him in much the same manner, but he had been too late to prevent Shawn being hit by the first shot. Thiago had been wounded by the second, but he was sliding snake-like along the floor toward the doors through the small pool of blood his wound had left.
More shots followed the first two, breaking more glass and imbedding in the
furniture, walls, and floor. Carl started Nikolaus forward with a little nudge, and they both slithered toward Brandt and Shawn. Shawn was hit, but not as badly as Carl had thought. The only real threat to him at that moment was the possibility of Brandt smothering him. Carl reached out and yanked at one of the knots as another shot hit the chair Shawn was tied to, and finally they got him untied. Brandt rubbed his hand protectively over Shawn’s head and then Carl’s and Nikolaus’s, as if petting prized dogs, before he went crawling over to the cupboards near the door.
Thiago reached the gaping hole that had once been the sliding glass doors
and he yanked the string to the blinds, closing them and providing the rest of them with enough cover to crouch and scramble for safety.
Carl pulled Nikolaus to his feet and shoved him toward the bedrooms.
“Gather whatever you can! The essentials!” he ordered as he hit the interior lights and turned them all off. He then went straight for the high-powered rifle Thiago had been using at the plaza and set himself up at the doors. He stayed behind the wavering blinds, careful not to poke them with the muzzle and careful not to let his scope reflect the bright sun. He searched the rooftops and balconies through the scope, but found nothing. Finally, he found a black hole in a building down the street where a window had once been. The angle wasn’t right for him to be able to see inside.
“We have to move,” he shouted finally. “Everyone. Grab what you can and
go. Now!”
364 The
Archer
Abigail Roux
XXXV.
SHAWN didn’t move. He’d been shot, but it was more of a graze than an actual hit, and Shawn was pissed off about it. The least the bastard could do was have the
decency to hit him. A nice kill shot and Shawn’s misery would have been over.
“That the best the bastard can do?” Shawn growled angrily from the floor
where he remained sprawled. “A fucking professional marksman with a target that’s tied to a fucking chair, his whole fucking chest exposed for the taking, and all he can hit is the fucking arm?!” he yelled at no one in particular. “Open those blinds! Give him a second chance, the worthless fuck! We’ll paint a fucking bull’s eye for him this time!”
“C’mon, Beignet,” Brandt urged insistently as he practically dragged Shawn
across the floor and to the door.
Shawn allowed himself to be dragged. He didn’t care whether he made it
through now. He’d lost the only thing he truly cared for. He’d known Remy was
important to him, he just hadn’t realized how little life would be worth living if Remy were no longer in it. He had always told himself that something would be there for him to care about. He had taken for granted the knowledge that there were certain things, certain obligations and certain loyalties he thought would always take priority over Remy. Now he knew he’d been wrong. Remy had always been the priority, even
when Shawn had been working against the younger man.
Shawn’s head swirled as guilt overcame him. He’d always been Remy’s
priority. Why had it taken five years for Shawn to give him the same respect? Why had it taken Shawn five years to begin to want to earn what he got from Remy?
Why hadn’t Shawn told Remy about that mission? He’d tried to, but only
once. Only once in five years had he tried to tell Remy the truth about how they’d come to know one another. Only once in five years had he tried to be honest.
But now Remy was dead. Dead by his hands. At least he could go back to
the Organization and finally say ‘mission accomplished, mates, now I’m going
home.’
But home was Remy. And Remy was gone.
The Organization could go fuck itself for all he cared. Mission fucking
accomplished, indeed.
Remy was gone, and that was all that mattered.
“C’mon, Beignet, stay with me,” Brandt murmured pleadingly into Shawn’s
ear as he dragged him to his feet.
Brandt was using emotional manipulation to keep Shawn from killing
himself. Brandt had said that he hadn’t meant all the things he had said the night they had fought, but Shawn had seen the look in his eyes. And unless Brandt was seriously more talented than Shawn gave him credit for– which was possible– Shawn didn’t
The Archer 365
Abigail Roux
believe him. You didn’t tell someone to their face that you didn’t love them unless you truly didn’t, Shawn didn’t care how fucking angry or crazy or both you were.
Why had it taken so little to convince Shawn he was in love with Brandt
anyway? It had taken five years of loving Remy before he had realized it, but Brandt had been almost instantaneous. Why was that? Shawn supposed it had to do with his guilty conscience. He wasn’t supposed to fall in love with Remy, and so he had
denied the fact. Was that it? Shawn didn’t know. He loved Brandt, sure. But nowhere near like he did Remy.
Brandt wasn’t enough to keep him from putting that muzzle to his temple
and pulling the trigger now. Brandt wasn’t Remy.
Brandt could go fuck himself, too. If Shawn wanted to kill himself then, by
fuck, he was going to do it. Brandt, the Organization, Thiago, Carl, Niko. Gray. John.
Thierry. Whoever the fuck else was out there gunning for them. They could all go
fuck themselves. And Shawn would get the job done, one way or another. He had
nothing left. He would go out on his own terms, preferably suitably liquored up, and he would take whoever stood in his way down with him when he went.
XXXVI.
“WHO’S shooting at us?” Nikolaus yelled as the five of them ducked through the
door and out into the hallway.
Thiago was bleeding profusely from what looked like a wound on his neck
or shoulder. It dripped down his arm and left a trail behind him as he walked. Shawn was bleeding from the graze on his arm and complaining about the shooter’s bad aim.
Nikolaus wondered how long they would have to keep Shawn restrained
before the suicidal urge went away. If Nikolaus had been the one to shoot Remy–
yeah, well, maybe they could keep Shawn in handcuffs or something. They were
easier to haul around than ropes.
“Whoever it is, we have to get the fuck out of Australia,” Thiago said in a
weak voice as they moved cautiously down the stairwell and to their rental vehicle.
“Where do we go?” Nikolaus asked as he watched Carl and Brandt clear
their path through the parking garage. They moved forward quickly. Thiago and
Shawn were helping one another along as Brandt a
nd Carl stayed on either side of the group with their weapons. The few items Nikolaus rescued and tossed into a duffel bag, Remy's duffel bag, were thrown into the trunk, and Nikolaus took the keys from Carl and got into the driver’s seat.
“Just drive,” Thiago muttered as Brandt shoved him and Shawn into the back
seat. Thiago looked a little worse for the wear, but he was conscious, and that was always a good thing. He held a bandana to his collarbone and Shawn sat fuming and muttering as Brandt fussed with his arm.
366 The
Archer
Abigail Roux
“Fucker missed,” Shawn kept mumbling angrily.
Nikolaus tore out of the garage and headed south.
XXXVII.
BRANDT looked back at the receding building and pulled the switch out of his
pocket. He’d managed to recover it from its hiding place in the cupboard and now he grinned as he fixated on the building.
“Cover your ears,” he ordered just before flipping the device and placing his
own hands over Shawn’s ears. The man was listless and without hope at the moment.
Brandt would need to do something. Something drastic. Something like… tell him the truth. Fucking hell, Brandt hated telling the truth.
The top floor of the building didn’t exactly explode. Not in the traditional
sense of the word. It crumpled first, then the centre blew up and out like an erupting volcano. Brandt watched it with intense glee. He’d wanted to blow that fucking place up for years now.
He turned back to the others. Nikolaus watched the blast in his mirrors as he
drove, and Carl turned in his seat to look at Brandt pointedly.
“Was that strictly necessary?” Carl asked finally in exasperation.
“No,” Brandt replied joyously as he petted Shawn and rubbed the man’s
head like a dog. “But it was fun.”
Carl rolled his eyes and turned back around, trying to hide his smirk, but
Brandt saw it anyway. Thiago hissed in pain and Brandt leaned over Shawn, who
slumped dejectedly in the middle of the back seat, and began helping Thiago get his shirt off.
“Shawn, did you and Remy have a predetermined place to meet?” Thiago