Making a Choice

Who: Brett and a body of Eris
Where: A back alley
When: A night some months ago

The sound of the rain vied with the purr of the car engine to block out the wider sounds of the city as Brett turned down the alleyway and pulled to a halt. The headlights cut through the darkness, lighting up the drops of rain as they fell, and the dumpster against the alley wall. He left the engine running as he opened the car door, stepping out into the downpour - if it could be called that. He wasn't convinced - but it was too heavy to be a shower, not heavy enough for a storm. This god forsaken city had too many different types of rain. Whatever it was, it was wet and it wasn't going to stand in the way of him doing what he was here for.

He'd been given directions to the alley, and his job - and they'd made sure to use small words so they knew he'd understand. Fucking patronising bastards. But then again, it suited Brett to play dumb, so he could hardly blame them if they treated him that way. Or any normal person could hardly blame someone for giving the required response to something. Brett though - Brett could blame anyone for anything, if it meant that he could continue to hate the world.

He turned up the collar on his jacket as he walked round and unlocked the trunk of the car. It was empty - for now. Wouldn't be for long. She'd be behind the dumpster, they'd told him. That was where they'd left her. He was the clean up crew - body disposal. Nothing fancy, just take her and throw her in the river, that way she could wash up come dawn and the play could be put into motion. A simple job, one he could handle alone - grunt work.

She was there, where they'd said she'd be. Small thing, made to look smaller in death, shrunken somehow. He'd never seen her up close before, though he'd noticed her. She'd had a certain presence that a guy couldn't ignore, even if he looked like he was doing just that. Brett worked at not giving away where his attention lay - let the world think he went through it oblivious. Was easier that was. He ignored the world, the world ignored him. Anyone countering that better either be above him, or ready to deal with the consequences. Brett didn't like to be bothered, and he wasn't shy about telling people to fuck off either.

He checked the alleyway one last time before he bent to pick her up, sure they were alone. Even soaked, the body was feather-light, or so it felt to him. He figured that, standing, she'd not even come up to his shoulders. Only he knew she wouldn't be standing again. They'd made sure of that.

Two strikes - they liked to separate things out. Three men had been sent for the job. They'd wanted to make sure it got done properly, make sure she didn't get away. The Syndicate had known that they'd only get one strike at this. They missed and the girl'd surround herself with enough hired muscle that they'd take the whole thing down trying to get to her. So - three men to make it look like a mugging, then him to watch the area to make sure there was no interference and dispose of the body after the event.

He placed her in the trunk, looking down at the sodden form for a moment and feeling a pang - for how she'd ended up, for how he'd ended up. Both through no fault of their own. Whatever she'd been, she hadn't deserved this. She'd been killed because someone wanted what she had, and she hadn't been willing to give it to them. She'd stood by her principles - what few someone like her had - and paid the ultimate price for them. And he - what had he done? He'd abandoned his at the first sign of trouble. He'd cast them off, everything he'd once stood for, left them behind. He might still be living, but the man he'd once been was as dead as she was now.

He closed the trunk, slamming it shut and heading back round to the driver's door, before starting the short drive to the river. There weren't many people out on the streets tonight, the weather driving them indoors or keeping them there. Those that were out were hurrying, heads down against the rain. There was the shadowy shape of a wino, huddled in a doorway, trying in vain to keep dry. Occasionally he'd pass another car, beams lighting up detail for a moment, then fading into the night once more. Nobody gave him a second glance: there was no reason why they should.

His chosen area of the riverbank was off the main road, down litter-strewn alleys between warehouses, through a junkyard owned by a guy he knew, who'd given him a set of keys a few years back and knew when to call off the dogs. Brett knew, though, that the guy's loyalty wasn't to him - it was for the men Brett worked for. All the same, there was a path through and Brett took it, parking the car up by the river, completely alone now. Nobody wanted to witness any of this.

The rain was starting to slacken off as he walked back round to the trunk again, unlocking the compartment and opening it up, a small light inside and the dim red glow of the tail lights the only illumination in the darkness. He stared down at the body, stone-faced, not betraying anything. He was still thinking about it all, about what he'd become, about the things he'd done over the last few years. About how far he'd fallen. It was heavy in his mind tonight, there in the cold rain, in the air itself, haunting him as it so often did. A reminder of just how much he hated himself and what he was now, the memories of what he had once been, about that guy, about the brighter days of his past lingering, taunting him. He could never go back. He could never be that man - that good man - ever again. He was scum, and for the rest of his living days he would be scum. That was his fate, because he took the choice not to stand up for what was right. He took the choice not to die. Because he was too much of a coward to keep to his ideals. Because he wasn't a hero.

Impulsively, he reached down to brush a strand of dark hair away from her neck. She was soaked, pale and the hair had stuck to her skin, black against the white of her skin, contrasting with the livid marks where they'd crushed the life from her. Except, unexpectedly, there was a pulse - faint, but there under the tips of his fingers.

He questioned that, at first, questioned what he was feeling. He pressed a little harder, and there, again - the faint beat of her heart, still going, still pushing lifeblood around her body. he froze - faced with the realisation that this corpse was no corpse, that this plan had not gone according to script. That this woman wasn't dead.

He knew what he should do - she wasn't dead, but she was mostly dead, pale and unconscious. He shouldn't complicate matters - he should simply throw her in the river as was, leave the water to take the last bit of her away. Leave her to drown. Use some initiative - take that final step.

It was a fine line, Brett knew. A fine line between killing and murder. A fine line that nobody else would see, but it was one he'd maintained. He was a killer. He knew this - the things he'd done, the things they'd expected him to do - he was a killer, time and again. But he had always maintained, in the sanctity of his own mind, that he was no murderer. He'd never killed without orders. He'd only even killed when he'd been told to do so.

A fine line, impossibly fine. And one that would be broken tonight if he carried on. They'd not told him to kill her - but, of course, she'd meant to have been already dead. If they knew, they would expect him to kill her - expect him to do just what he knew he should do. But he also knew that it would be that final nail, that last shred of himself.

But why should it matter? He'd already lost so much - what would it mean if he surrendered the rest? He was already lost, there was no going back, that man was already gone. Yet, as he looked down at her, he made his choice, his decision - he slammed the trunk shut again, striding round to get back into the car, heading off into the night, leaving the river far behind. Clinging onto that final shred of himself. Knowing all the time that he'd just made a choice - a choice to hold onto the remains of who he had been, to keep the heart of how he had been beating as hers did. And it was a choice that could finally kill him, once and for all.