The Great Game (South/Ele)

i'm pleading please, oh please, on my knees repeatedly asking
why’s it got to be like this, is this living free?
i don't want to be the one, be the one who has the sun's blood on my hands
i'll tell the moon, take this weapon forged in darkness
some see a pen, i see a harpoon

For someone marching to his death, there's an odd sort of peace settled heavily in my bones. It's closer to numbness than I thought it would be, the only thing I can feel a sense of hollowing loss that grows with every step I take away from Colt. They tore me out of his arms. The last time I ever saw his face, he was confused and frightened. The recent memory makes something burn slowly through my chest.

He'll be fine without me. Hell, if I'm being honest with myself here at the end of all things, he'll probably be better off. I always liked to blame the world for the loss of everything I ever loved, but I'd never really stopped until now to consider the fact that maybe it wasn't the world's fault. Colt has this one last chance to walk away from all this terror I've put him through, to go home, wherever that is for him. To be happy and loved in a way that I could never give to him. If me dying is what it takes for him to accomplish that, I'll put a gun in my mouth and eat a bullet of my own volition.

But I suppose I won't have to do that. The Capitol's probably all too eager to take care of that task for me, after all. A sardonic smirk works its way onto my face as I'm hauled down flights of stairs and into a dark, windowless room. Shame. I wonder if my last request could be to see the sun once more before I die. After months of living underground in Thirteen and a year of a nocturnal lifestyle in One, I miss the warmth on my skin.

One of the two muscle heads in uniform that dragged me out of my cell practically throws me into a horrifying-looking chair contraption, the impact slamming into the fresh bullet wound in my shoulder. What might have been a scream turns into a peal of maniacal laughter, my eyes flashing with a spark of that old madness. At least in the end, the monster at my core hasn't abandoned me yet. It's the only thing that never has. And if I'm to die, it won't be as a coward. "How do you boys always seem to know that I like it rough? Do it again."

"You're sick," Tweedle-Dumb hisses, strapping my wrists and ankles to the chair while Tweedle-Dumber nods his assent in the background.

I laugh again, winking at the two of them as they retreat from the room. "You have no idea."

It doesn't take long for the star of the show to enter the room, a man with startlingly blue eyes and ramrod-straight posture that immediately launches into a long and boring read-through of the file in his hands. The psychological tricks he's trying to pull are practically laughable. From the way he carries himself to the conversation I overheard when they shot me down in the woods, it doesn't take me too long to deduce his identity.

"Agent Micro, I presume?" I ask, an amiable tone to my voice that doesn't match the insane grin stretching across my face, a cold, predatory flash of teeth in the guttering fluorescence overhead. "I'm disappointed. I would have thought that you'd step up your game a bit more than this. You've got so many holes in your logic that I scarcely know which ones to point out first. It's ill-advised to try to have a legitimate battle of wits when you're so obviously used to dealing with unarmed opponents."

The impassive look I get in response only makes me laugh again, head thrown back against the top of the chair. Still, all pretenses aside, I can't help the violent twinge in my guts. They got Tarquin. He's in here somewhere, which might well mean that the rest of the Angels are too. Perhaps I waited too long before getting out of their lives to save them from my poison touch. If there's any vulnerability that might cross my features, I make a solid effort to stamp it down, letting the cold indifference of my old self take over. There's a benefit to the monster I was before all of this still clinging stubbornly to the darkened corners of my mind. He deals with things like this far better than the sad, lovelorn wreck I've become ever could.

"First of all, spare me all this drivel about martyrdom. My life doesn't mean too much on any scope, and I'm not so stupid as to believe that there's anything stopping you from killing me and throwing me in an unmarked grave. The delusion that telling you anything might save my hide is laughable. I won't be the first person to walk through these doors and never walk back out," I sigh boredly, examining my ragged nails even though the restraints on my wrists restrict my movement before looking up at him with a razor-edged smirk. "Secondly, I'll tell you nothing. Any evidence you supposedly have is purely circumstantial, otherwise you wouldn't need a confession. And as for pain as a motivator… well, you might want to take a look at my face and then ask one Pyrite Shore how well her attempts with that strategy worked."

I feel like I'm sitting down in front of a chessboard. The opponent has come out full force, and I've taken my queen into play, knocking aside every foolish pawn thrown in my direction. The only thing left to ponder now is what other strategies might pan out. What else does he have to throw at me? There's always the fact that I'm certain someone on some camera somewhere saw what happened between Colt and I in our cell, but I've made contingencies for that. I can use it to my advantage if they try to make it their tool. My confession for his freedom. I'm going to die anyway. The least I can do with that irrefutable fact is use it to get him out of this concrete hell and back where he belongs.

He belongs with me, the anguished part of my heart that the monster hasn't consumed yet screams, empty and aching. The monster snarls and tells it to shut up. Its sentiment is no longer welcome here. Not when it makes me weak.

It feels good, dismantling all the bullshit and smoke and mirrors, laying things out the way they really are for once. I know that I can't stop the endgame, can't prevent the inevitable. But if I'm going to go, the last bit of satisfaction that I can offer myself is to go on my own terms, salt their wounds a little more even with my last breath.

"You'll never close the book on those murders, Agent. You might as well just shoot me now."

i'll stay awake, 'cause the dark's not taking prisoners tonight
why am i not scared in the morning, i don't hear those voices calling
i must have kicked them out, i must have kicked them out
i swear i heard demons yelling, those crazy words they were spelling
they told me i was gone, they told me i was gone