1
Royce Drysdale pulled into the car parking spot he usually went to in front of the two rooms where Daniel and Erica stayed. It was always free. He wished that every spot he wanted was like this, but it was highly unlikely.
He had a long and difficult night as he switched the engine off. His body was still in pain from the previous day's activities, and he slept in one of the spare rooms.
Not the distance between Royce and his wife had to be maintained. She was an important witness, but she also could be a person of interest.
He had no idea how to treat her or let alone look at her. He still knew that something was there, because he knew that he still yearned for her and still wanted to hold her and be there for her. To throw over twenty years of a relationship, a friendship, that transitioned to a relationship to marriage was never something easy to cast aside.
He hated the films for that.
They made that stuff look easy, but it is not. There are so many variables in how that could work for a person, but for most the ripple effect of having someone in your life for that long and for them to NOT be there, nothing is ever the same and the person doing the leaving is never the same.
In some ways, love is an unfair game on the other person as well as yourself. You are putting everything—your hopes and dreams, your fears and neurosis—on this other person, a person who is a human being and who is capable of messing up so drastically that your world falls apart as a consequence.
That pressure Royce thought could be enough to make anyone do something out of character and make that fatal mistake.
Love is about thinking about that person through everything and that means the bad and good.
How many just walk away after that terrible betrayal or mistake? And if they did walk away, did they really love their partner in the first place.
Royce knew deep down that unless Alyssa stood in front of him with a smoking gun and had killed an ordinary citizen, then it could be enough for him to leave her.
He shook his head. The fool in him would still find a way to make it work, because that was how Royce Drysdale worked. The romantic fool who loved Alyssa Drysdale nee Townsend since she was shown around his high school when she transferred in from Pittsburgh all those years ago.
He at the moment was a football savant, was the coolest person in the school and leaned on his locker and joshed about with fellow friends and teammates and she was just Alyssa Townsend and she was just the most beautiful human he had ever seen and this included Pamela Anderson in Baywatch. She walked by as she was shown the school a fellow student and still good friend, Shania Grayson, who grew from a duckling to a swan in very little time, from freckles to glasses to bras and blush within the space of a summer. In fact, Shania and Royce were once destined to be together, but Alyssa Townsend came and interjected those plans.
He was glad she did too.
Royce never believed in love at first sight. Love had to be earned from both sides. But lust at first sight was definitely a thing and he was lusting Alyssa from the beginning and then grew to love her character. Who she was, mistakes and successes and all. He cared about everything about her, even the stuff that annoyed him. It was that indelible feature that made her his life and the one human who gave his true dedication to.
He knew he could not leave her, but he was hurt. He would have to find it within himself to let it go. Once again.
Royce got out of his car and that fresh Pennsylvanian air hit his face and charged up his nostrils. It was one of the few joyous things that being up this early could give a person.
He then noticed, as he stepped out with the two cups of coffee he brought, that both doors were open.
Why the fuck did I not notice this before? He thought and he took out his service weapon and crept slowly to Erica's door first.
You have to check the female's room first. Well that's what I was taught long ago, Royce thought as he crept and his heart beat a little faster. He leaned on the blind side of the door and then waited three seconds before he charged in and was met by an empty, neat, and tidy room.
Royce stepped out and went towards Daniel's room and it was the same thing; he leaned and hung by the blind side and did a little check of the room and that is when he saw Erica on the floor as she slowly got up.
Royce ran with a gun drawn and checked the bathroom. 'You okay, Erica?'
'Yeah,' Erica said in a slow tone that showed she really did come back into the world of the conscious .
'Anyone else here?' Royce asked as he came back into the room with a wet flannel. He saw as he charged in that the back of her head bled a little.
'No.' Erica said as she sat down and Royce kneeled down and placed the wet flannel behind her head. She grimaced a little as she gave away less pain than she actually felt at the moment.
Royce looked at the bruised face of Erica and immediately knew that something had happened after they left his place. 'What the fuck happened?'
'We paid Oliver Harris a visit and it all went down.' Erica said.
'Is that where Bridgewater is right now? To serve some retribution?'
'No,' said Erica as she shook her head, 'He's got him.'
Royce looked surprised. 'Oliver's got him?'
'No. Marco. Marco's got him.'
2
A stiff breeze hit the face of Daniel Bridgewater as his eyes opened and he felt something he had not felt in being in the realm of consciousness in a long time. The residual nature of recovering from pain.
His body felt stiff and knew his joints had been worked on by Oliver Harris. He was in a seated position, leaning on a wall that was broken and damaged. He was high as another gust of wind hit his face. He looked to his right and he saw the sun rise over a cluster of trees and old buildings that were in the distance.
He looked to his left and he saw barren land that stretched for at least a good two miles. Other buildings of industry now looked condemned. There were derelict apartments in the distance.
He almost knew what was in front of him when he decided to look forward.
In front of him sat the not-hooded, well-built frame of Marco Reilly. He looked at something in his hand. Daniel then felt his head.
Blood.
'You were out when I took this.' Marco said. He showed Daniel his communicator that also had dried blood on it. 'Connected right into the cochlear, comes in and out just like that. A fucking marvel of tech.' he paused. 'Or is it something else?' Marco nodded to himself. 'I was worried you died with all that blood that came out and I guess it is messing with your equilibrium as I speak.'
Marco was not wrong; Daniel's ear had healed and he had some spatial awareness back, but he knew if he launched into Marco right now, he would go straight into a wall or worse, off the side of this building.
'What are you, Agent Bridgewater and please, for the love of god, don't say you're the man who is going to stop you? You said it before and it's now become fucking redundant. I'm asking you seriously; who are you?'
Daniel sighed and tried to sit up. 'A man tasked with a job. You know the rest.'
'Are you like me?'
'A killer? I've killed, but not in the malicious way you seem to enjoy.'
Marco smiled. 'I've watched you. I've been watching you. You walk around here, knowing you are the most powerful man in the room, in the area. I like the power I have, but so do you, don't you?' Marco paused. 'Were you given your power? Was it forced upon you?'
'I was born with it. You were not?'
Marco stood up and then sat back down. 'I was forced to have mine.'
'Why?'
'I was at the wrong place at the wrong time. It was all wrong, Bridgewater and it all culminated in me being there when they got me.'
'Who?' Daniel asked. 'The Greycloaks?'
Marco nodded. 'They'd been taking black men from other counties for years. When we disappear, no one gives a fuck about us, unless you're Michael Jordan or someone like that, but once you are an ordinary Joe like me, then no fucks are given to me.'
'What did they do?'
'I was taken to some facility in the furthest part of this state, close to New York and Canada. They put me in this machine. The pain I felt, I felt like death every day. There were moments where I would have chosen death ahead of living because of the constant punishment my body and my mind had taken. I was kept in a pod full of water and had a mask, so I couldn't talk and I was knocked out and re-awoken when they wanted me to. I was under control.' Marco paused. 'I was injected with things—different coloured liquids or something—that each made my body react in a freaking violent way.' Marco looked at Daniel. 'Once they were done with all the testing, I was kept in a large cell. So they could keep watch, see what I could do.' Marco looked away again. 'Them grey fucking walls. The grey door. The darkness. I was at my lowest and that's when I could just move things with my mind—an apple here, the bed there, the door soon enough. They had to tranquillize me every single day.'
'Were you the only one being tested?' Daniel asked.
Marco shook his head. 'No. I counted twenty pods, twenty cells when I broke out.'
'How did you break out?'
'One guard, he was not the smartest, he was one of the guards who sedated me each night. He gave me the lowest possible dosage one night. That was all I needed. I think he got mine mixed with someone else's, but that was all I needed. I got out and killed every man I met, every man who stood in my way that night.'
Daniel nodded. 'First time you killed?'
Marco said, 'Yes.'
'You felt good?' asked Daniel.
'They gave me no choice. I knew what I had to do.' Marco said.
'It's not what I asked you. Did you feel good?'
'Yes.' Marco said plainly. 'They treated me like an animal. Not a human. It felt good killing them.'
'Why did you kill Taylor Lambert?'
Marco looked at Daniel. 'Because he was there with Harris. They did not try to stop it. From where I was, they encouraged it and when I killed the last scientist, I asked them who was in charge, and they told me it was Oliver Harris and Taylor Lambert. They signed their death warrants at that moment.'
'How did you find Taylor?'
'I did my due diligence, Agent Bridgewater. I followed him until that night. It became difficult to get to him because he always had something that protected him, so even I couldn't get through, and I kept trying to get him. I knew that they were going to get a delivery at that warehouse that night. I fucked an female who worked for Engrave, and she told me that there was a big delivery coming in that night. Woman was wild, married looked for adventure, but once she found out what I had planned to do,'
'You killed her too.'
Marco nodded with a little sadness. 'No great win in killing a woman, but she was in the way.'
'Of your vengeance?'
Marco smiled. 'Exactly.'
'It drives you.'
'Like it would anyone who has been forged by it. Have you been betrayed, Do you feel vengeful, Bridgewater?
Daniel did not answer. To Marco that was enough of answer.
'Who betrayed you?' asked Marco.
'Why then, that night Marco, how did you know you would be able to get through?' Daniel asked back.
'Giovanni Pinkman.' Marco asked. 'He was a treasure trove full of the fucking information I needed. He told me it was magic that held me back from killing them both, but only one of them had control of it.'
'Oliver Harris.'
'Yes, that Taylor wanted to be the next big thing in politics and wanted to push his right agenda on this country like the other guy who tried and failed to win a few years ago. Oliver wanted him to focus on this long game they had planned for years.'
'What long game?'
'A whole new world to replace our own and the captured men who would turn into controlled hunters for this new world. Enforcers. Slaves to their cause.'
'Shit.' Daniel said. 'Why kill Pinkman?'
'Pinkman was also there. He worked with Oliver and Taylor, then got himself a costly divorce and hooked himself with an east-town chick. Had something else I needed, which I got the day you and your partners. But he did not stop my torture. He allowed it to continue. I knew he had to die.'
'What did you get from him?'
Marco smiled and changed the question, 'Who betrayed you, Bridgewater? Why does your heart carry such vengeance?'
'Mine doesn't.' said Daniel.
'I've seen that look before in myself. I've seen the anger. The pain. The rage and you carry that, don't you. You're carrying something, aren't you and you cannot get away from it? It dominates you, doesn't it? Yeah I see it; I could only see it in you.'
'You're fucking reaching Reilly.'
'Am I?' Smiled Marco, 'Then look deep in that heart of yours, Bridgewater. Search with all the fucking honesty you can muster and tell me that I am wrong. Can you do that?'
That hit a nerve with Daniel and he looked away.
'Of course. You may not be willing to admit it to me, but as long as you can admit it to yourself, that is the most important thing.'
Daniel looked at Marco, almost as if he tried to see into his soul. 'You got family, Reilly; when you escaped, Engrave, you didn't go home?'
Marco now looked away, faced with the difficulty of that question. 'I had no home. My family saw me as a freak, something the devil had spat out after being missing for over two years. Yes, Bridgewater, that is how long I was gone for—two and a half years of my life taken from me like that.' He paused once again. 'I had a wife. I thought I had someone who would search the ends of the earth for me. That if I was lost, she would stop at nothing to find me. That was a false promise. It took her under a year to declare me dead and meet someone else, some man who sat in my chair, stayed in the house I worked hard to pay for and be with the woman I took care of for years, who I loved and who, when I was at my lowest, I thought of her, looking for me, worrying about me, not being able to function without me, but that was a fucking lie; it was all a lie.' He stood up. 'Before I knew it one night, I was in front of both of them and demanded my wife tell me why she lied on the altar. Why would she lie to God and everyone that loved us?' He wiped his chin as Daniel could see the rage surge across Marco's body. 'She said in the coldest way that she was married to a winner and someone who could take care of her. Not a loser that needed to be taken care of.' Marco took a deep breath. 'The love I had for her left in that moment. Once she said her final words to me, I broke her neck. Then her husband brought out his gun and made him shoot himself. You know I wanted to burn the house down, but I didn't.'
'Why?'
'Why? Is that something you would do, Bridgewater?'
'I'd destroy everything.' Daniel said without thinking.
'There you are. The real vengeful man. The real Daniel Bridgewater. It is good to finally meet you.'
Daniel smiled at him back. He actually felt his gun in the holster. He also felt that he could spring up quick enough to aim it at him and end this whole thing. 'What do you want from all this?'
'Vengeance, I swear I said this several fucking times.'
'Yeah, but if you got it, if you won, what next?' asked Daniel.
'Quite frankly, I haven't thought about it. I kill Oliver Harris and stop this new world plan thing of his and after that, I can finally move on.'
Daniel sprung up, took out his weapon and pointed it at Marco's head, done in once graceful and quick before a person could realise move. 'Raise your hands.'
'You people always ask this, and it is the same fucking outcome.' Marco walked up to Daniel, who remained calm himself but failed to shoot. Marco pressed the gun onto his forehead. 'You that much of a killer, Bridgewater. You wanna end this so bad? Then do it; know that I didn't put up a fight, but if you wanna do it, then do it, but fucking live with it.'
'You looking to die, Marco?'
'I'm looking for vengeance, just like you. I'm just not afraid to let it rule me like you. This purpose surges through my fucking veins. I'm not scared of it. I'm not scared of death either. I have no one to live for. Just like you.'
Daniel looked shocked and he stepped back but still pointed the gun at Marco.
'Nothing like the loneliness we embrace when we have our missions in life.'
'What do you want from me, Marco?'
'You can either help me kill Oliver Harris,'
'I'm not going to do that.' said Daniel.
'Then you just stay out of my way, but I guess you won't do that either, so then just kill me here then.'
They both stared at each other. Then Daniel put his gun down. Marco smiled.
'Every man has a philosophy, for good or for ill, it fucking rules us, we are truly forged by our internal philosophies in our lives. What's yours? You can't kill me right here, right now, because I haven't attacked you, is that right?'
'I've seen evil men and women kill innocent people with pure impunity. Like they were nothing. That they treated them with no hope. To kill without protection or defence, just to kill for the sake of it, brings me no fucking joy. As much as I'd love to put you down right here. I cannot do it.'
'Cause it is something you have done before, isn't it?' Marco asked with a smile.
'You already know the answer to that question, but when you do come at me,'
Marco continued with his smile. 'Then it is on between us.'
'It is.' Daniel smiled. 'This will be the last peaceful moment between us, unless you decide to come with me right now and be under arrest.'
'Laws, brother,' Marco laughed, 'like laws here or anywhere, apply to you or me.'
'They still apply Marco. You ain't going to like it, but these cannot be avoided.'
'Even if they do not apply Bridgewater. If I cannot be stopped with what I have to do? Would you be stopped with the road of vengeance that you are on?'
'No,' Daniel admitted.
'THEN WHAT IS THE FUCKING DIFFERENCE BETWEEN YOU AND ME BRIDGEWATER? WHAT IS IT? WHAT MAKES YOU SO FUCKING VIRTOUS?'
'I don't enjoy killing, not no ordinary citizens. I have people to kill; some I may enjoy, but those have been years in the making. You'd kill someone for just walking into you.'
'I'm not that fucking crude. You don't know me.'
'The Grisco gang?'
'Who?'
'The four men who you killed at the gas station.'
Marco shook his head. 'They were going to kill a helpless man, an old helpless man. That man got to go home. See the ones he loved. I got him another tomorrow. Another sunrise. I ain't feeling bad about it and I don't think you would either. What would you have done, Bridgewater? Let him die?'
'No.' Daniel answered straight away.
'Yeah, but they ain't attacking you.'
'They were attacking him. So I would have put them down.'
Marco smiled. 'Don't be so coy, Bridgewater. We are two gods standing in the promised land. Say it. Say that you would kill them.'
'What good would that do?'
'What good would come if you didn't? You know what you are. Just like I do.'
Daniel nodded. 'I would have killed them. I would have enjoyed it too.'
'There you are.' Marco said and he punctuated every word with a deliberate, sharp pause. 'The monster you are.'
'And that's the monster you will see if you keep on with this Marco. My best advice would be again to give the fuck up now and have your day in court.' said Daniel and he measured his words for the maximum amount of potency.
'No. I have my mission and so do you. It's just who will get to win out of the two of us.' Marco paused. 'You are a hard man to kill Bridgewater, but you are still a man and a man can be killed.' said Marco, 'I just haven't figured out how to kill you yet, but I will. I always do.'
'So do I.'
'Then we know how this will end.' Marco said.
'Yeah, we do.'
'So be it. I'll see you again. Just be ready for your last moments on earth, Bridgewater. Make them count.'
'I always am Reilly. Always. Are you?'
Marco smiled, but this time he chose not to answer. He started to rise in the air.
'One thing,' said Daniel as he looked up and put his gun back in its holster. 'Why put the twelve bodies on the ceiling?'
'They had to see their plans go up in smoke. They had to see my plan.' Marco said and he was about to fly off.
'One more thing.' Daniel asked. 'What's that like? Flying.'
'Honestly, Bridgewater. I feel like a god when I'm up here. I'm never freer.' Marco flew high into the air and then into the thick clouds above.
'Fucker.' Daniel said to himself and then he looked around as he picked up the discarded communicator that was on the floor. 'Where am I?'