Refutation of a Tragedy

1:26 AM.

[ Breathing, low and rough. ]

Carol. I know—

[ A wet, laborious cough. ]

I know you’ll be the one to find us. If you aren’t, you’ll be close behind. Never could keep your nose outta trouble. That’s why we...we butted heads so much. I’ll miss—

Well. Maybe I won’t. Doesn’t matter.

[ Low groan. ]

You were right. About everything. Me, the job...Milo...

[ Shaky breath. ]

But there’s no—no time for my regret. You gotta stop Bradock, Carol. The bombs he planted—disarm code is 95241, got that? 95241.

Milo told me that. Just like you, sticking his nose where he shouldn’t...

[ Coughing. ]

Lotta stuff about him I never told you. Like Christmas. We...we got drunk on shitty wine and just—talked, you know? Not about the job, but what comes after. Stupid little fantasies. But with him, it was so easy to believe.

[ Coughing. ]

It was all so...soft. Too soft. But I needed that, more than anything, and somehow he knew. He just knew.

I—I want someone to remember that night. Even if it’s just through a story. Can you do that, Carol? Remember we...we...

[ Wheezing breath. ]

[ A soft exhale. ]

[ 94 minutes of silence. ]

[ Recording ends. ]

↺↺↺

1:25 AM.

I am alone. I know this, because Milo’s shoulders have accumulated a cloak of fresh-fallen snow and his body is sapping heat from mine. The crimson stains now lie hidden beneath a gentle white shroud. As though the world itself wants to forget.

The night is hushed. This silence feels reverent, like a church after hours. My every cough is a violation of a holy place. But this pale cathedral will do for final prayers.

With fingers I can no longer feel, I slide Milo’s phone from his pocket.

I have to hold his hand to unlock the fingerprint sensor. His flesh is rigid from the cold, and I tell myself that’s the only reason.

No service. Figures. I navigate to the phone’s camera before thinking better of it. Carol doesn’t need to see us like this. Voice recorder; that’ll work fine. I hit the red button and hope that my words are still audible between coughs.

My last, desperate stand against terrorism isn’t like the movies. There’s no gun in my hand, no dramatic music or evil mastermind. Just a half-dead man alone in the snow-grey twilight. I look to Milo’s face, still frozen in the travesty of a smile. For me. It’ll be alright, James.

My eyes burn. Thick, fluffy flakes of snow catch in my lashes and melt to mingle with my tears.

I can do this. For him. For us.

↺↺↺

1:21 AM.

It’s not the worst place to die, I guess. Here with him, at the edge of a frozen lake. The distant lights of the city paint the sky a muddy orange, but around us, the gathering snow is almost pristine.

I don’t know where the pain has gone. Maybe it’s muted by encroaching hypothermia. Maybe it’s still a raging grease fire in a different compartment of my mind. I’m glad to be spared the conflagration.

I want our last moments together to be gentle ones.

↺↺↺

1:13 AM.

Milo has been quiet too long.

I see past my tears to realize I am breathing for both of us. The agony in me is forced out of my throat. I’m trapped behind my own eyes, watching my hands press Milo’s torn chest as if this will save him. It must save him.

Some time ago, Milo told me he couldn’t be saved. “I’ve done too much bad, James. That’s never gonna go away.”

“Neither will I,” I told him.

There is an ugly, gaping hole in me and all my memories are slipping away like crystals of sand through a broken hourglass. Milo’s shy smile as he handed me that flower—long before we were much of anything to each other. Milo in the middle of his trash-tornado room, slender fingers tinkering with wire and circuit board. Milo laughing in the warm light of my kitchen, a bottle of awful sherry between us.

These fragments fall heavier than the drifting snow, slipping out between my staunching fingers. There is a scream where my heart should be.

↺↺↺

1:06 AM.

I think we’re alone now, though I don’t remember hearing Bradock leave. I can’t look away from Milo, not even for a second, as I try to hold us both together.

A feeble voice. He is telling me something, words I refuse to hear because they sound like a farewell or an apology, and I want neither.

“You’ll be alright,” I say, “you’ll be alright.” It sounds like a prayer, even though it’s Milo who believes in God.

His head rises an inch, and his eyes find mine. They’re hazy, unfocused, as though cataracts of frost have already formed over his corneas. I swallow down another sob, and I almost miss what he says next.

“95...2...41...”

I don’t understand. I beg him to save his breath.

A cold, trembling hand touches my face, then slips away just as fast. He smiles, and I think I read in his eyes everything he never got to say.

↺↺↺

1:02 AM.

My knees give out, and I hit the snow-dusted pavement hard enough to hurt. Someone is screaming. Maybe me.

No one holds me back. I crawl to Milo’s side. He’s all I can see, crumpled on the ground in a bundle of dark clothes and dark blood. My shaking hands find the heart of the stain and press hard, trying to dam up the crimson tide. Someone behind me is arguing, or maybe just yelling.

CRACKcrack. The second shot echoes off the lake’s ice sheets. There’s a heavy shove between my shoulder blades and I slump against Milo. Fog slips into the folds of my brain, and for a moment I forget where we are, what just happened. I think of how beautiful the lake looks. How perfect and untouched.

A pinprick of cold lands against my cheek. It’s started to snow.

↺↺↺

12:57 AM.

The SUV’s tires crunch to a halt. Bradock seems perfectly at ease as he kicks open the car door. Reluctantly, we unfold our stiff limbs and follow him out. His two thugs climb from the front seats. Both already have their guns out.

I use a meditative breath to lower my heart rate and ease some of the strain in my jaw and neck. Even under a dark sky, I’d rather keep my nerves to myself.

We’re out on the lakefront, far from the clogged atmosphere of the city. A concrete breakwater stretches out to either side of us, vanishing into the darkness. Beyond the car, I see nothing but trees, and before us is the frozen lake. Previously undisturbed ice and snow crackle in protest of our trespass.

It’s the kind of silent, secluded area one would go to drop a body. I take another, deeper breath. I can only hope they don’t make Milo do it.

“What’s this all about, Bradock?” I say aloud. “Awful late in the season for fishing.”

“Someone here,” Bradock says, ignoring me, “accessed sensitive company documents without authorization.”

The January air slips beneath my coat and scrapes like a blade over my skin. A careful twitch of surprise flickers across my face. “Can only assume you think that was me, then. Only reason you’d haul me out here.”

Milo shifts—just a fraction of an inch, but enough that I pick it out in the silence. Bradock’s eyes remain heavy on me.

“I trusted you, Winters. So I’m giving you one last chance to prove me wrong.”

He steps towards me, pulling a small pistol from inside his jacket. My nerves spike; my eyes narrow.

Bradock presses the weapon into my hands. “Make your choice,” he says.

I stare at the gun in my hand, uncomprehending. As I look up, I see Bradock’s two thugs pushing Milo to his knees. They step away, keeping him in their sights.

Milo doesn’t look scared. He gazes calmly up at me, and I realize with roiling nausea that he expects me to find a way out of this. Special Agent James Sarento will save the day.

“Well?” Bradock’s voice. My eyes don’t leave Milo’s face, but I see Bradock gesturing from the corner of my eye. “He’s a traitor to the cause. It should be easy to take the shot.” His voice shifts, going colder than the brittle air around us. “Unless, of course, you’re a fucking Fed.”

Does Bradock know? Not about my cover; I’ve blown that pretty spectacularly. But does he know about the flower, Christmas night, the way Milo breathed my real name with a reverence usually reserved for the adytum?

Does he know there’s only one choice I could ever make?

To buy myself a few more seconds of life, I spend time deliberately leveling the gun at Milo. His expression doesn’t change. Still trusting. He even has the audacity to give me the tiniest of nods, like he’s trying to say he understands. Maybe he does expect me to pull the trigger—to earn Bradock’s trust and finish the mission. I’d sworn up and down to Carol that I would, even in a circumstance like this.

I can’t pretend to deliberate. I know my answer already.

My hands flash—two quick shots, one for each of the thugs training sights on Milo. I’m already half-turning towards Bradock when the sound catches up to me.

Clickclick!

Quiet and impotent. The gun’s clip is empty.

As the adrenaline turns sour in my blood, Bradock sighs.

“I didn’t want to do this, you know.”

His pistol rises almost casually, like it’s just another day at the range for him. I lunge forward, empty gun held like a club. I know I won’t close the distance fast enough.

There’s a blur of motion. Milo throws himself between me and Bradock.

This time, the gunshot is real.

↺↺↺

12:44 AM.

We’ve been driving for half an hour. The car is chilly, as though the driver hasn’t bothered to turn on the heat. Maybe it’s deliberate—an age-old interrogation technique.

I’m still waiting for Bradock to question me. Instead, he’s busy cleaning a gun in the middle row of seats. Not even facing us.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe he still suspects nothing.

Deep down, I know only dead men trust hope. She’s a fickle bitch at the best of times and a proven liar, in my case. My jaw tightens. The unfamiliar scenery sliding past tinted windows seems to darken and deepen.

Then, a flicker of warmth. I nearly startle at the brush of contact. I look down to see Milo’s fingertips tracing the back of my hand, soft as a fluttering eyelash. My gaze rises to his, expecting him to look as tense as I feel. Instead, he smiles. Just once, just gently. In the lowest of murmurs, nearly as quiet as the rumble of the engine, he says, “It’ll be alright, James.”

I swallow hard at my name, my real name. It’s such a risk, given the circumstances, and yet somehow the sound comes as the greatest relief I could ask for. It’s a kindling fire in my chest.

In the darkness, I hook my fingers through his.

He doesn’t say the word love, and neither do I. But it’s there, a comforting embrace after a long day. We could die tonight, I know, but before that—we will exist in this moment, maybe for a second and maybe forever. Alive and in love, immortal against the odds.