Double-Blind: A Modern LITRPG

Chapter 328

There was no immediate response. Only strained silence that stretched on for an eternity.

Then metal flashed in the waning light, and Miles was on him, driving a knee into his guts, sending the older unarmed man crumpling to the floor. The butt of his service weapon collided with Roderick's skull, splitting open a nasty gash on his forehead, the cry of alarm immediately silenced as the older man found himself staring down the barrel of the handgun.

Roderick's presence was meant to accomplish multiple objectives. Demonstrating the worth of what I was doing here, a quiet flex of the usefulness of my abilities, and a method of introducing doubt, making him question whatever assumptions and plans he'd already formed.

All too late, I realized I'd miscalculated. And that introducing the two of them within the quiet confines of the nursery had unintentionally given Miles a staging ground to carry out the vengeance he'd clearly intended from the beginning.

"What the fuck, Miles?"

The barrel of the weapon snapped up, pointing at me, even as Miles' other hand remained tightened on Roderick's throat. "Don't trot this fucker out like a lamb to slaughter and act like this wasn't exactly what you wanted." He glared at me, sight trembling from where it was aimed at my forehead, his face blank, eyes wild.

On the pavement, Roderick remained still, hands palms up. Considering how quickly things had gone from neutral to shit, he was holding up remarkably well. Not the first time he'd been under the gun. Then a glint of recognition crossed his face. "I know you. The government employee from the transposition. Department of sanitation, was it?"

"Shut up." The answering blow snapped Roderick's head to the side, blood from his mouth spraying the pavement.

Behind me, I heard movement as others from the nursery roused, drawn by the commotion.

"This isn't—""Stop. Talking." He pointed it at me again. His face was a rictus of pain, nothing but hurt. "So. You sniffed around and found out about my kid. How he died. Whose fault it was." He jostled Roderick for emphasis. "And when I end him, it puts me in your debt. In addition to whatever bullshit morality play you decide to layer over the top. That about right?"

"No."

"Then what?"

I drew a breath, pausing as I tried to work through how to claw this back. The miscalculation had happened because I thought Miles had set his personal grievances aside. No one ever really got over the death of a loved one, but he'd been pragmatic to this point. Instead of pursuing Roderick, he'd been focusing on hunting necromancers, which I took as a sign he was capable of putting his personal vendettas aside.

To an extent, I still believed that.

But I needed to get his finger off the trigger.

With effort, I kept my voice bland. "If you're dead-set on turning my project site into a crime scene, don't be fucking stupid. Put the gun away. I'm not helping you clear another bounty."

There was an edge to his haggard smile I didn't like, and for a moment I thought he might ignore me, pull the trigger out of some renegade instinct. Then, in a smooth motion, he flicked the safety and holstered it, drawing out a blade instead, pressing it to Roderick's throat. "Anything else?"

There wasn't a doubt in my mind, from the way he'd said it, that if I answered incorrectly, it would be Roderick's end.

"Take a moment and think. Because whatever the history here, I didn't know. About your kid. About any of it."

"Bullshit." Miles hissed, lip drawing back in disgust. "Why would you go to the effort of turning this motherfucker in particular? Bringing him here?"

I threw an arm wide in exasperation. "Because you warned me about him!" A shadow of doubt appeared, and I pushed the advantage while it lasted. "During the transposition. You straight up told me he was bad news. And with the impression you'd left—the impression of someone I genuinely believed had the city's best interests at heart—I took it seriously. That's why he's here. Living witness that I listened, even then. That I took your advice and acted on it."

Miles' certainty waned, though ire still hung heavy in the air. He spoke through gritted teeth. "So it's just a coincidence then? One that just so happens to work almost perfectly in your favor."

"Think. You warned me. I listened and acted on it. The only reason it feels like a coincidence is because there was history there I was completely unaware of."

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Slowly, he shook his head, utterly lost. "Can't read you. The words you're saying sound perfectly reasonable, but they always did. Even when you were lying through your teeth. This is pointless."

"So you kill him, then me, on the off-chance I might be bullshitting?" I said, not having to fake the growing exasperation.

"Maybe. It'd be safer." He side-eyed me. "And you're definitely bullshitting. To what extent I can't say, but it's only a question of degree."

"Clearly, I made a mistake." I snapped, growing heated. "When I thought you were more than every other power-tripping asshole fed with a gun."

In the moment, he was vulnerable enough that the words cut deep. But the lapse was temporary.

"What did I do?" Roderick managed, speech slurred from the licks he'd taken.

Quiet!

But it was too late. Miles' attention returned to him, and I saw a thin line appear in his neck as the knife pressed harder. "Human trafficking, extortion, murder, running shit that might as well have been murder. And that's only the tip of the iceberg. It'd be easier to sum up what you didn't do."

Visibly, Roderick held his silence. Then I heard his voice in my mind.

Let me speak.

"He's not someone you can manipulate. If you say the wrong thing, he won't flinch." I shot back, weighing the options, looking for a way out.

Roderick seemed to take the warning as tacit approval. He licked his dry lips and tried again. "That's true. All of it. But what I meant was, what happened to your son?"

A dangerous silence weighed heavy as a war raged in Miles' expression. From the lack of hesitation, he'd likely visualized this, imagined playing out this very moment. "Caught him in a rebellious streak. Made it permanent. Got him hooked on tainted shit, had him parceling it out to everyone he knew."

"Ah." Roderick replied, a sense of finality seeping into his tired voice.

"'Ah?'" Miles mocked. "That's all you have to say for yourself? For all the lives you ruined? Fucking, 'ah?'"

"Miles—" I started.

But again, Roderick interrupted. He sounded resigned, almost impassive. "There's nothing I can say. If you're searching for a reason, you won't find one beyond simple profit. It was lucrative, so I saw no reason to stop. The lives lost, the casualties—none of that mattered to me."

"But now you've changed, right?" Miles' lips split in a frigid smile.

Minutely, Roderick shook his head. "It'd be more accurate to say I understand now. That my perceptions have been widened. The guilt I couldn't feel, that I believed myself utterly numb to, awakened in full."

"Because of him." Miles inclined his head toward me.

"Yes." Roderick murmured, looking at me with sickening gratitude. "And thanks to that, I was able to follow so much evil with a modicum of good. Not nearly enough. Nothing could undo what I've done. But it was a pleasant dream while it lasted."

Miles' brows knit together. "This is the part where you bargain for your life."

The older man pressed his lips together in a tight smile. "If what you've claimed is true, I've no right to ask anything from you. Mercy or otherwise. The only reason I'm still here, now that the scales have fallen, is because I was told I could be useful. Serve a greater purpose. If that purpose is to die here, today, paying for past wrongs in blood? My only regret is that I couldn't do more."

"Horseshit." Miles said, seemingly more to himself than Roderick. Because as much as he lacked confidence in my case, his instincts as far as nearly everyone else was concerned were rock solid. I'd wager, in that moment, he knew Roderick believed every word he spoke. Believed it emphatically.

"Horseshit." Miles repeated, shaking his head. He pushed himself up, taking a few unsteady steps back, panning the exterior garden and the others dressed in sweatsuits, silently watching him. "This is insane." He stabbed a finger at me. "That's not the same guy."

"I agree." I inclined my head, breathing a discreet sigh of relief. "Which is why I genuinely don't want you to kill him. Think about what this means, in the greater picture. We can sway public opinion easily, make sure the big threats are neutralized before they even rise to power."

"All the while building your army." He said, mouth turned downward in derision.

"Never an army. If it goes that far, I've failed in the entire point of my role. Guiding this thing to a less catastrophic outcome."

"And that's the most noble bullshit I've heard all day." He snarked. Even as he sheathed his knife, the violence still crackled around him, pure potential with nowhere to go.

I'd like to say that it was calculated. Me giving him an outlet. But the truth was, I was so pissed off at how badly this had spiraled out of control, and so shaken at how quickly it had turned, that I wasn't thinking straight.

"Maybe if you were less emotional, it'd be easier to see reason—"

There was a blur as he swung at me, a vicious hook I only partially blocked, his gloved fist slamming hard into my cheek.

It would have been smarter to let it pass. Retain some semblance of moral high ground. But the last few hours had been taxing, packed with too much I had to tolerate, and too much anxiety to stomach. Before I knew what was happening, I swung back, catching him in the gut. He tightened his abs too late and grunted as the blow landed.

Then the fistfight began in earnest.

/////

The Waffle House was absurdly bright, voices too loud, the way people describe a hangover after a bender. Every part of my body hurt, and I pressed an icepack to my jaw, which still clicked every time I moved it wrong.

Next to me in the booth, equally bruised and battered, Miles was resting his head on his hands, staring toward the kitchen with a thousand-yard gaze.

Across the table, Sae, Julien, and Charlotte looked on with varying degrees of concern. Both last to arrive and slowest to pick up on the mood, Nick had pulled up a chair to the outside end of the table, his chipper demeanor dampened as he poured his usual six-or-so half-and-halfs into the anemic mug of watery coffee.

"So. Uh. Are you guys okay?" Sae finally asked.

"Mmm." I grunted.

"Never better." Miles said.