Lost Attention

Who: Brett
Where: The One More Round
When: Night

It was over.

Or, it probably wasn’t, but it felt over. Martens had been arrested, taken into custody by Danny. God, but it felt over, like things could get back to how they were meant to be. And Danny could be the hero of the hour. Brett figured the guy would probably lap that up, and even if Danny didn’t, Brett was just glad that it wasn’t him for once. Not him that had to field the press hacks and hangers on who wanted to bask in reflected - and so often false - glory.

Brett would be happy to keep to the shadows. For the rest of his life. He’d never wanted his fifteen minutes of fame. Not the first time, and not every other time it seemed to find him. They wanted to call him a hero cop, but he’d never asked for it.

He never asked for anything. Ever. He’d become aware of more and more of late. That, if it weren't for outside factors, his life would more than likely, never alter. That he would remain in the same place, good or bad. His life was a broken record, stuck in a loop, going round and round, the same things over and over again. And sometimes it changed, but all that ever seemed to do was skip him to another rotation, where he’d walk through the same things time and time again.

Unfortunately, knowing your faults didn’t make it easier to overcome them. Or, that was Brett’s opinion, if he thought about it. But he tried not to think about it, he always tried to avoid thinking too deeply on his life, never satisfied with what he found there when he did. He avoided wondering if the latest development in his life wasn’t just another broken groove. Another habit forming. Because his twice daily visits to the Round, to first drop off and then pick up mail, were the highlight of his day. He didn’t want to think about things and realise that maybe they weren’t all that. Especially not today, today where it felt like maybe things weren’t always going to be stuck in this groove. That maybe, for once, he would be able to get out. Because it felt over. It felt like there could now be a next - even if he didn’t know what that ‘next’ would be, or where it would lead.

Brett Trent almost felt positive.

It was with a new feeling that he headed into the Round once again that evening. One he hadn’t had in a very long time, for the man who mostly had only one fully functioning emotion: anger. He wasn’t thinking too hard on it, but it did mean he wasn’t quite as on edge as he usually was, which, in retrospect, was a bad thing, given where he was.

The One More Round was not a good place for someone like Brett Trent to be, something of which he was usually entirely aware. Two types of people didn’t dare set foot in the Round: cops and mobsters. Brett had been both. He had enemies here, enemies who, whilst they may not have been willing to take him on directly under usual circumstances, were taking affront increasingly to the fact that Brett seemed, these days, to be treating the place like his local.

It had been noted by cautious and increasingly angry eyes, that he had been coming in several times a day, that he was no longer acting in the surreptitious manner that his calls used to be made on the very odd occasion when he would be spied, sitting in a darkened corner, watching the Shadowed Angel sing and clearly attempting not to catch the eye of anyone else. Hell, just last night he’d had the audacity to spend the night getting drunk with the damn coroner, and Trent hadn’t been the only cop in the bar that night. There was no way in hell that the Round would become a cop bar. It had its place, it knew what it was, and if the owner wasn’t going to maintain that fact, then laws would be put down, hardened, for him. Everyone knew what happened to cops that came into the Round - that was why no cops came in here. That was how it was. How it needed to stay.

A message needed to be sent.

Wednesday night was a busy night, the bar crowded. Brett pushed his way towards the bar, for once not paying too much attention to his surroundings, not realising that his progress was being tracked. He sidestepped as a fight broke out in front of him over who the hell knew what. It wasn’t uncommon in the Round, and he had no intention of getting involved. Others didn’t feel the same though, as more piled in, exposing Brett for a moment in a clear space. And the watcher decided to take his opportunity.

Brett dodged a punch that came his way, stepping back and twisting just moments before the shot rang out. Looking back, he would wonder if that move had actually saved his life, but in the moment, that moment, all he felt was pain. Sharp, intense pain as his leg gave way beneath him and he fell to the floor.

The shot broke up the fight like a bucket of cold water. Everyone stopped. The last thing that Brett heard before he blacked out was the sound of a woman, beginning to scream.