Chapter 3

It’s dark when the bedroom door clicks open, jolting Eurion awake.

The soft shuffling of slippers helps him identify Louis, no other sound meeting his ears, and he’s just closed his eyes again when-

“Eurion.” It’s a whisper. “You awake?”

“Mmph.”

The single bed two feet away creaks as Louis sits.

“Need to talk.”

Eurion sighs. “Okay. Gimme a sec.”

It takes a minute for him to right himself, pushing himself up to sit against the wall. He rubs sleep from his eyes. Slivers of blue and purple light filter through the blinds, a little extra coming through the broken slat third from the bottom, the one Rome broke when he installed it over the small window. There’s enough light to make out Louis’ figure on the other bed. He sits hunched over. His knees are pulled to his chest.

“What is it?”

No response.

“Lou.”

“Ms. Corvette propositioned me.”

This is something Louis does, always referring to his clients by some misnomer - a fear of reality, he called it once, saying that to recognize identities would be proof he’d accepted his lot in life. Easier to refer to them by a nickname. To give them an avatar. Louis loves video games, and life gets a whole lot easier when he pretends he’s living one.

Eurion runs his tongue along the back of his teeth. “For consort services?”

He can just make out the nod Louis gives, a shadowy movement.

“What… what did you say?”

“I said I’d think about it.” The words are muffled; he’s buried his face in his hands now. “I feel sick. We had just left the high stakes table and were headed for the bar, and she asked me. Said it like it was the most casual thing in the world.” He lifts his head. “I said I’d think about it. What’s wrong with me, E?”

Eurion doesn’t have to think. “You’re desperate. No need to feel shitty for it; we all are. That’s what’s wrong with us all.”

“None of you are considering becoming harlots.”

“I kill people for a living.”

It’s silent.

Ten years ago, this conversation would have been a fever dream, a bizarre concoction of Eurion’s adolescent mind in a much simpler time. But now he sits, staring at the dark silhouette of his roommate, the term murder already fading from his vocabulary, and wonders what he’ll be talking about ten years from today. If he survives another ten.

He’d called it that once. Murder. Used to think that about Nick, for a while, that he was unfeeling and psychopathic and savage. But now?

Professional assassin. Sniper for hire. Private gun. They’re all phrases Eurion goes by, mantles he’s accepted as part of the “trade”. Nick was never numb, he knows now. Nick was simply adaptable.

Grit your teeth and do it, Nick had said, the first time he took Eurion for target practice. That kick will become your safety net.

It’s true. Nothing makes him feel as secure as the cool steel of his Timberwolf resting in his grip. But Eurion has come to terms with his chosen path.

Louis fights himself constantly.

“What does your gut tell you?” Eurion asks.

“I can’t tell. I’m too distracted by the holes in my sneakers.”

“Seriously, Lou.”

A sigh. “I don’t know. It’s hard to tell if I feel worse at the thought of going through with it, or at the thought of how broke I am. I’m running out of options. Did I tell you I had to sell my Versace shirt? The one Lady Toupee bought me?”

Louis used to wear that shirt around the apartment three days a week. Didn’t matter that he wasn’t entertaining. Clothes this nice deserve to be worn, he said. He’d thrown a fit when Nick joked about shrinking it in the wash.

Eurion holds back a sigh, missing those days, the days when they still had a laundry machine, the days when chores had a causal air about them and less of a this is for our survival mentality.

“You told me,” he says.

Distant, muffled through the wall, an ambulance siren whines into being. The sounds rises and falls, wavelike, a wave of drowsiness that sloshes over him. It's more of a lullaby than an alarm these days. A reminder that night is looming.

Louis picks at something on his knee. "I saw a bounty claim report on the casino big screens. For that bigshot CEO you were after."

Adrenaline hits Eurion like a skytrain.

Choking on spit, he shoots forward off the wall, nearly falling off the bed. His ratted blanket pools onto the carpet. "What did it say? Who was it?"

"Richard something." Louis cocks his head. "Aren't you supposed to read up on these guys before-"

"Not the target, Lou - The shot, who was the shot?!"

"Oh, right." Lowering his feet to the floor, Louis sits forward. Soft-glowing purple and blue lines fall across his face, painting him a Greek god in filtered neon, a cool, sharp image that reminds Eurion of an advertisement he's seen for an extravagant cologne line.

Daylight suits Louis better, in Eurion's opinion. Warm light brings his softer features into focus. Makes him look young. Like the boy he'd been, before the world had started carving him into something else.

Humming, Louis taps his finger against his chin. "New blood, this one. Goes by the name 'Triggerfinger'."

"Original."

"That's rich, Nighthowler."

"Shut up." Heat crawls up Eurion's neck. He didn't pick the name, didn't know he'd gotten a reputation for his choice of weapon until it was too late to establish himself as anything else.

Snorting, Louis leans back, disappearing into the shadows again. "Anyway, I overheard a couple private guns talking about it. Apparently this one's a sniper, female - climbing the ranks quickly, too. Not much other info out there."

Eurion tastes the lining of his cheek, poking it out with his tongue. Sleep and dehydration have melded together to turn his mouth to sandpaper.

He fumbles for the half-empty water bottle under his bedframe. "Well, the female part narrows it down. There aren't many women cutting into the gun market these days - which is odd, really. They don't have to get up close and personal if they don't want to. They could make a living as a killer without ever throwing or ducking a punch. There's precision to sniping. Attention to detail. You don't get blood on your hands - literally speaking - if you're good at what you do."

"I expect it's the killing part that turns them off the job," Louis says dryly.

Shaking his head, Eurion rights himself, scooching back on the bed again until his spine meets the wall. "No. There's a lot of femme fatale types out there. They'll slip things into drinks. Lure a man to a dark alley with a little skin, then step back so a gang of brawlers can jump him. Women aren't afraid to take a life."

"Maybe I should be on the watch for that, eh?" A half-hearted laugh sounds from Louis' silhouette.

Eurion closes his eyes. The memory of the scene plays against the dark canvas of his eyelids, stilling him to watch again and again as his shot, target, and pay are taken from him. If this starts happening on the regular, it'll be his reputation at risk next.

"Maybe we all should," he says.