you can't reverse the bullet from a gun. part 5
five
I don't know how much more love this heart can lose, and I'm dying, dying from these exit wounds. (The Script - Exit Wounds)
New York, New York
8:25AM
The bullet bounced off the side of the table with a loud snap, ricocheting across the room to the wall. The shell thwacked on the floor and lay still. Kris was shaking violently, his eyes wide open in terror and his mouth moving to form an unspoken no.
Yixing was moving quickly across the room now, wincing with every turn as he helped Kris to his feet. We only have a few seconds. When the drones move in, I'll stand behind the door. You tell them that you killed me and that they need to carry the body out before it starts smelling. When they come in, knock them out and I'll shoot them if I have to. Then we get the hell out of here. Kris could only nod mutely; he had no control over this situation and it seemed that Yixing knew what to do.
Yixing was spot-on: within 5 seconds, two of the Committee's drones were pushing their way through the door and barking at Kris, What happened? He repeated the story they had concocted and the drones made their way into the room. Kris snapped his arm back and came down as hard as he could on one of the heads. The drone fell to the floor with a loud thud. The other spun around but Yixing buried a bullet into his chest. Now they really had to book it.
Yixing and Kris sped down the hallway, with Kris pointing in the direction of the exits. For all the confusion and mayhem that had just gone down, Kris was finally feeling a sense of clarity as he recognized doors to cells and doors to exits in the headquarters. With one last final directive, Kris and Yixing were barreling through a steel door even as the emergency exit alarm sounded behind them and tumbling onto the asphalt.
It was early morning, so the sun nearly blinded Kris for a second, but then Yixing was tugging insistently at Kris's arm and Kris just followed. It was weird being so lost, so unfocused, so messy, but Kris had long ago accepted that Yixing made him messy. They barged through traffic, ignoring the honking and screeching sounds of cars forced to yield to pedestrians. A loud fucking assholes came from behind Kris, but he couldn't pay attention to anything at the moment but Yixing's warm hand on his and the tugging motion that kept him moving.
In that moment when Yixing had pointed the gun at him, Kris was sure he was dead. It was all he deserved, after all; he had spent the last six years pointing guns at people, taking their lives away, and all for what? All for a dark organization committed to destruction and disaster. He had wanted to feel something, he knew; when the Committee had inducted him, he had finally felt like he belonged, in this place where coldheartedness and selfishness were integral and standard. He didn't feel much, but he had felt grateful to the Committee for giving him a place, no matter how shrouded in shadows it was.
But Yixing had changed him. Yixing had shown him light, had pushed away the shadows and embraced Kris as he was. Yixing had chosen to believe him, give him the benefit of the doubt, and trust him. And that was it. Yixing was it. Kris had been waiting his whole life to feel like he could feel, and now everything was bathed in a stark clarity. He could feel.
We need to hide, Yixing hissed, his eyes wild with panic. Where can we go? And at first, Kris was just as panicked. But then it came to him, bubbling from the depths of his mind.
Let's go home.
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Westchester, New York
1:23PM
It was a house Kris barely remembered on the bus ride over, but that he instantly recognized when he saw it. He had been back here so many times over the past few years, just to imprint the house that he hadn't known as a baby but that he now knew as an adult into his memory. The red shingled roof he saw two years ago had been replaced by a blue top, and there was a patio where there used to be free space. The big oak tree outside was still there, but instead of the dull wispy silence of dead leaves and lost inhabitants, there were small children running around screeching hysterically as they chased dogs and balls.
It was home.
Yixing was respectfully quiet as Kris took in his surroundings, his eyes skirting from one side of the yard to the other. It was surreal being home, surreal being here in this place where everything had started and ended so terribly. He made his way across the lawn, sidestepping the kids, who he realized didn't live here but rather next door, and their playful antics had spilled over. The house was faded, a real estate placard lighting up the patio. Kris pushed the door open gently.
The creak of the door coupled with a gust of wind from behind them instantly sent shivers down Kris's spine. Yixing immediately pulled Kris upstairs, finding a bathroom to wash up. Kris was mute, his eyes scanning every inch of this place, as Yixing wiped away the dried blood and gently tended to his bruises.
There was no bed anywhere, no furniture for Yixing and Kris to sleep on, but there were soft blankets, possessions of previous owners, stashed away in the closets. They tumbled onto the blankets, exhausted after 2 hours of running and 2 hours of a bumpy bus ride, and fell fast asleep.
Kris woke to a gun pointed at his head. But instead of stark terror or any variation of that emotion, he felt an utter calm. He had been waiting for this moment for so long, had known it was coming, and there wasn't much he could say or do to stop the inevitable end. 湖 was staring down at him, his eyes narrowed as he squeezed the trigger as far as it would go without firing, and he hissed, Get up.
Yixing was pulled unceremoniously forward and he collapsed on his knees, his body still smarting from the aches and bruises the drones had dealt him before. Kris crawled onto his knees, slowly and steadily, fearing any sudden movements would cause 湖 to pull the trigger and that'd be that.
They should have killed you, too, all those years ago. Threw you out the second floor window and hoped you'd land on something hard. 湖 spat at the floor, his eyes wild with fury. But I saved you. I told them we'd come for you years later, make you a part of our organization. And you shit on our generosity like this?
Kris's breath was slowing down now. 湖 couldn't be talking about the home invasion that had killed his parents and made him an orphan....he couldn't be. His mind struggled to understand what was going on.
We should have killed you. I should have killed you. You have embarrassed me, and made a mockery of our cause. 湖 cocked the gun, easing it against Kris's forehead with a gentle nudge. Goodbye, Kris.
The bullet ripped out of the gun with a loud roar. Kris squeezed his eyes shut, awaiting the impact, but then someone was knocking him out of the way, shoving him into the wall, and then it was chaos, pure chaos, as two more bullets ripped through the air and then a singular thud. Kris opened his eyes.
湖 was on the ground, a single bullet hole in his forehead and a light trickle of blood making its way down his face and onto his cheek. His eyes were still and glassy; he had been dead before he hit the floor. The gun, where's the gun, Kris thought to himself as he got to his feet.
It wasn't supposed to be like this, he mumbled as he stared at 湖's lifeless body on the floor. It wasn't supposed to end like this.
And then Yixing was crashing into him, his arms and legs jelly as he tumbled into Kris's arms, and it didn't register that something was wrong, that this short-lived moment of sadness and victory wasn't supposed to last. He was slipping to the floor, his body thrown out of sync by Yixing's dead weight in his arms, and then he was on the floor.
He looked down at Yixing, who was pale, so pale it frightened Kris, and the color of red comforted him only for a moment before he realized it was spilling out too quickly and too violently to be staunched from a wound in Yixing's chest. No, Kris breathed, his hand clamping over the wound and pressing down. No, this--no! He was pulling Yixing up to his chest, pressing his body against his and for the first time in his life, Kris cried. He wasn't sobbing or weeping or doing anything; the tears just slipped down his face quickly and steadily as he held Yixing to him, as he felt his body go still with every ragged breath he took.
When he let go of Yixing, the blood stuck to him like molasses, hot and wet on his chest. Yixing's lips were dry, and his eyes were droopy. He let go of the gun he was holding, and it tumbled to the floor with a loud crash. He opened his mouth, struggling for air to say one last thing to Kris. He was whispering, clawing violently at Kris's shirt, and Kris pushed his ear against Yixing's mouth, because it was all he had right now, these last words.
If I could have chosen who would be next to me when I died, I still would have chosen you. And then Kris was sobbing, really and truly sobbing.
---fin---