Gordon would never have known the number of times he had escaped death that day. He would never have known the amount of ridiculous luck he possessed, to have narrowly avoided a head shot aimed at him, to have been shepherded into the safety of
the escape vehicle unharmed while his bodyguards took on damage, for
all the bullets that bombarded the vehicle to have missed him. Even as
he hurtled down the market street, even as the car struck that metal
contraption and lost all control, even as the shards of the wooden bathtub blasted the car with its shrapnel as it did flips on the concrete with showers of
sparks flying from the grinding and twisting metal, he would have never
known what deity was looking down on him with concerned eyes.
He hung by the straps of
the seat belt as the distorted metal contraption all around him rolled
onto its top with a defeated crunch. The driver before him hung by his
seat belt strap, blood pouring out of a gaping wound in his neck where a long shard of wood had punctured an artery. Dead. Reis in the passenger seat sagged up against the ceiling of the car, his head twisted in a horrible angle and his eyes rolled back into his head. Mercifully dead. But Gordon, Gordon was alive. Gordon
was still alive with nothing but a bruise on his shoulder and smoke in
his lungs from a ruined engine. Shaking with adrenaline, his clothes
matted with urine, blood and sweat, Gordon unhooked himself from the seat belt, feeling himself sliding up against the ceiling of the car. He was near mad with the sense of invincibility, laughter falling from his lips as he swept shards of glass with his arms.
Gordon
did not even give himself time to rest his shaken spirit, did not even
contemplate the near-death situation he had just escaped. He pulled
himself from the wreckage, laughing and shaking, then roared into the
echoing silence, his eyes searching for the hatted journalist. "HEY!
WHERE ARE YOU?! ASSASSIN?!" He staggered out of
the smog enveloping the vehicle and into the open, spreading his arms.
"I'M GOING TO FIND YOU, AND I'M GOING TO KILL YOU! I'M GOING TO KILL ALL
OF YOU!! DO YOU HEAR ME?!"
His voice rung in the emptiness of the street, but his eyes did not see the boy from the interview. There was a glint of light reflecting off of a piece of metal buried in the shade of
a two story scaffolding surrounding a nearby stone building. Death
threats still permeating in his mind, he turned his head to look in the
direction of the light, the crack of a smile still on his lips, the feeling of invincibility still in his heart.
In
that second, there was already a bullet in the air. The explosion had
already exited the chamber. Grave had already squeezed the trigger,
already steadied his racing heart and stilled his breath. It had only
taken him four minutes to race across the street, to climb up the
scaffolding as the escape vehicle spun out of control and crashed. So many seconds to prepare his weapon, to spot Gordon's raving figure. Grave had no time to question the morality of the hit, no time to ponder the consequences of his action. He only knew the gun in his hand, the trigger under his finger and the politician marked for death.
And this time, Grave did not miss.