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Kyle’s wrists hadn’t been tied that tightly. Loose enough for him to pry away, though it was awkward given that his hands were tied behind his back rather than in front. A quick look over just taking stock of his body gave him the affirmative: nothing life-threatening yet but that was subject to change if Kyle let those dogs catch up.
He pushed himself to his feet, miraculously fine if bruised from the transport over. They’d dumped him out with no real care and his hip and tailbone were bruised black. His head pounded but didn’t bleed. It was Kyle’s ribs, however, that suffered the most. He barely needed to prod at them to understand that at least one was cracked, if not worse. Breathing was hard but he could still walk. Kyle, of course, couldn’t afford to be slow.
He started at a hobble and then something like a loping run, careful not to put too much pressure against his chest. Still, they hadn’t gone far and they were stupid fast and stupid determined to mount his head on a lacquered wall or something.
Okay, he thought, slinking behind a cluster of trees and pinning his back to the rough bark, assess.
First of all: Kyle was fucked. Fucked beyond belief. If he wasn’t found and shot immediately after, there was a good chance something in these woods would just maul him and finish the job. He wasn’t given much context on the truck ride over, while they dropped him off. Only that if he wanted to drag it out, make it fun, he’d be better off running and frankly, Kyle was going to avoid all rich people or privately owned islands after this debacle, provided he survived long enough to tell the tale.
Secondly, he was alone. This was also bad because Kyle distinctly remembered getting himself into this fray with someone else. With Hal. Who was conspicuously absent from all proceedings because Kyle was sure his luck was the worst in the world.
And finally, there was no lick or hide of his ring. Not even the faintest glimmer of green light in the distant horizon. Not ideal if he wanted to escape easily.
“Goddamn it,” he hissed through his teeth, peeking around the trunk of the tree to glance towards where he’d just been lying. Nothing was there and the woods were unsettlingly still but he wasn’t about to risk anything. Pine needles blanketed the floor, dampened the noise of his uneven steps but he could do nothing about the clothes he’d been stuck here in. If Kyle had known he’d spend the weekend being hunted for sport, he definitely wouldn’t have picked the red hoodie.
But the cold was more bothersome currently and he wasn’t stupid enough to pull it off, even if he did intend to tie it around his waist. Frankly, he was glad he finally stopped wearing the ring naked.
For now, he dropped into a crouch, cocooned by the quiet, and tried to figure out what to do.
Staying in one place wouldn’t be wise. It’d make him a sitting duck at best, even if he was able to rig a trap. Hal was a problem in that Kyle wasn’t about to leave alone until he was sure he could find him. But the forest stretched on in every direction and the search would be like finding a needle in a haystack and Kyle could feel his chest hitch, could feel his throat begin to clog. He ducked his head and pushed it between both knees, sucking in sharp breaths until he settled. No time to panic. He was pretty sure rich people could smell fear.
So he straightened, got to both feet. Kyle hadn’t been camping much but he heard water towards his right. It was faint but the forest was so, eerily still that it came to him anyway. Following the stream could get him to a camp, maybe? Or a shore. From there…
Kyle walked. He kept his steps quick, muffled his breathing behind a hand and walked as softly as he could manage. The water was close by and he prayed it wasn’t a trap.
The eyes came from nowhere.
It didn’t make a single sound, completely noiseless in a way that made the hairs on the back of Kyle’s neck stand on end, made his mouth dry up and his heart quicken. He froze even before he searched the tree line for it, looking until he clapped gazes, until they locked eyes.
Kyle thought, for a split second too long, that he was going to throw up. For a moment, he couldn’t even breathe until his body freed him of its forced paralysis. Then, he stumbled a step backwards but his back hit rough bark that refused to yield as it stalked forward.
He caught a glimpse of blood staining its muzzle when it stepped free of the shadows and took only a second to turn and bolt.
Kyle ran frenzied with his fluttering, failing heart stuck somewhere in his throat, halfway out of his mouth, halfway to death. He ran while his chest screamed at him to stop and then pushed forward, crashing through the thorns and brambles of the undergrowth.
A tree sat in his way, with roots exposed and lovely, each one the thickness of Kyle’s entire body. He didn’t think twice before squeezing through the gap between them, finding himself in a dark, damp hidey-hole crawling with worms. In the darkness, Kyle thought, Fuck me, fuck me this is the fucking Hunger Games. Oh God, fuck me.
He ripped a hand through his hair. Too long now, dripping into his eyes and damp with sweat and mud. Kyle hadn’t gotten a good enough look at the thing to understand what it was but it was big enough to send him scrambling. Both of those eyes had fixed on Kyle’s and he’d only seen a flash of teeth which was too much, too much for him.
Whatever that was, Kyle needed to avoid it at all costs.
He pressed his face against the damp roots that held him. It was a nice place here. Shielded from the elements but not from much else. Dragging a hand over his eyes, smearing sweat and grime in the process, Kyle watched the outside and waited for the coast to clear.
“It is weird though, right?” Kyle asked. The pictures he’d grabbed off the board weren’t the greatest quality, still grainy enough to blur details but the victims’ faces were still clear as day. “You’d think we’d find bones at least. Or, like, personal affects?”
“Eh. Could be cannibalism.”
Hal only barely ducked out of the way of an incoming pencil sharpener. “Be normal.”
“I am,” he protested with no real heat. “I’m just saying that we need to explore all possible options.”
Kyle glared. “Cannibalism is not viable for the sake of my sanity. Cross it off your list and move on.” Then, he turned back to the photos with mounting despair. “There’s just…there’s no correlation. These people probably never even met.”
Looking over his shoulder, Hal frowned and slipped the file from Kyle’s hands, flicking through it himself. “No,” he muttered. “You think we got stuck with an impossible case to prove a point?”
“I think,” Kyle replied wearily, sliding into a nearby chair, “we need to get cracking before anyone else goes missing. You have any idea where we should be looking?”
“Employment,” came the easy answer.
Kyle glanced up, surprised. The victims boasted a variety of careers, from janitors to secretaries to financiers. No through line there either. Apparently their serial killer didn’t boast a preference for tax brackets which was just about the only sure thing Kyle could say about the guy. “What do you mean?”
Hal was smiling, that little self satisfied smile he wore when certain puzzle pieces clicked. “I mean, it’s kinda weird that all of these people worked for the same six companies, right? The Wolf of Wall Street was probably exaggerating but I’m sure this isn’t a coincidence.”
“I dunno,” Kyle found himself saying regardless. Hal’s reckless confidence was a trap more often than not, though it was never intentional on his part. Better to slow down and reassess than chase a lead that might lead nowhere. “Six separate coporations is still a lot of ground to cover. I doubt the perp works for all of them, right?”
“But it is weird,” Hal pressed. “No blue-collar folks or scientists or goddamn astronauts. Everyone’s contained in this corporate bubble. If our guy doesn’t have a preference, why pick out targets that’ll be missed?”
“For fun, I guess.” Kyle gave a helpless shrug. “How do you suggest we investigate this then? Ask around?”
There was a distinct twinkle in Hal’s eyes that boded terrible things for Kyle. “In uniform.”
“Hal—”
“No, no, listen. They’re probably expecting cops, not Lanterns. We show up, flash the rings, get into whatever places and talk to whoever we need to without having to sneak around and call it a day.”
With the rest of his energy, Kyle mustered up enough of a glare to have Hal falter for a split second. “You can’t just ‘call it a day’ on detective work. Also, the point is to do this subtly so that our guy doesn’t either disappear or kidnap anyone else.”
“Counterpoint,” Hal said, holding a finger up, “if we draw attention to ourselves, there’s a chance they’ll leave anyone else alone.”
“You wanna bet on that?”
A flash of teeth. “How much you got?”
Kyle forwent a reply to that, worrying his lip between his teeth. “It’s too risky,” he insisted. “And putting our necks on the line?”
“I mean isn’t that what we do anyway?”
“We haven’t even found any bodies, Hal. We don’t know what happened to them.”
“But we will.” His voice was calm somehow and Kyle, as much as he opposed it, felt himself begin to sway. “It won’t be easy but we’ll get there and do a damn good job.”
Kyle groaned. “Hal—”
“It’ll be fine,” he said, grinning.
“It’ll be fine,” Kyle mocked, wiping muck from his eyes. He’d extricated himself from that tree with only a few scrapes. Frankly, he didn’t really know how he’d gotten inside so easily given that suddenly, his head was almost too big to get back out. “Just fine. Peachy, he says.”
The urge to murder Hal Jordan was an urge that fluctuated over time. If only Kyle had been lucky enough to die before he’d ever had to work a case with him.
For now, he moved on and followed the sound of the water once more. If nothing else, he’d at least get an opportunity to slake his thirst and regroup. From there…
Well, the choice was simple. Between the hunters and the thing Kyle’d seen earlier, it’d be in his best interests to stay hidden until he found his ring or until someone not crazy found him. He was banking on the first option, if only because the ring would make finding Hal about a billion times easier and Kyle now had a serious bone to pick with the assholes who left him here in the first place. He couldn’t even bring himself to joke because he was still far too rattled.
The river was wider than Kyle’d expected. The banks were muddy and slick and he crouched low to the ground, one hand clawing at the filth while the other was wrapped around whatever roots he could get a grip on. Slowly, slowly, Kyle inched his way down until he knelt in the icy water. Then, with a moderate amount of gusto, he dipped his palms in and began to drink.
Was it sanitary? Probably not. Kyle grew up in the city and wasn’t known for having the immune system of a troll. However, he would argue it was better than dehydrating, which would be a miserable way to go anyway. Kyle would just have to risk the cholera though, despite everything, the river water tasted clean. God, it was as satisfying as gulping down as Kool-Aid on a summer’s day.
He wiped his hands on his jeans, which were already irreparably ruined anyway, and started to inch his way back up the bank. The soles of his entirely decorative sneakers weren’t meant for this type of wear and it was starting to show with the way Kyle kept sliding in stomach-lurching increments before he was able to steady himself. He crawled back to the top and didn’t stop crawling until he felt pine needles under his palms. Until he knew he wouldn’t fall when he stood.
And then Kyle cast his eyes back up to the river and found those awful, awful eyes.
“Oh my—”
The animal part of his brain was what responded again. He couldn’t think through that initial terror and scrambled to both feet. The thing was still, big and hulking and formless, though Kyle could be sure of nothing but the menace. He ran right into the trunk of a tree and his hands scraped against the bark. With reckless abandon, Kyle began to climb.
Tree climbing was something he only did when he was small, until he fell and broke his arm which freaked Mom out so badly that Kyle never tried to again. Somehow, he had enough muscle memory to make it, although his brain blocked out most of his frantic rush to the top. Shaking all over, Kyle hauled himself up to the intersect between the truck and two branches to sit. It creaked under his weight but otherwise held. Then, he steeled himself and looked down.
It had crossed the river in the time it took Kyle to get to safety and he could see it better now. A wolf. Big, bigger than he’d ever thought they could get. That massive head easily came up to Kyle’s shoulders. He couldn’t even imagine how much worse it’d look standing on its hind legs. Its fur was dark, dull grey, veering more towards a blue-black, though he wasn’t sure if it was natural or because of the sheer amount of dirt the animal was covered in.
The way it moved sent prickles up Kyle’s spine. He wanted nothing more than to try and get further away, but he was up and out of reach unless the beast could climb. In that instance, Kyle wasn’t sure what he’d do. And then there were those eyes.
He swallowed, mouth suddenly very dry, and tensed every muscle in his body to hold still. He hoped, prayed, the thing hadn’t seen him. All very unlikely given Kyle was sure he looked less than poetic climbing up to his resting point. But if he could just stay out of sight and out of mind—
The wolf growled. It was a low rumble, deep in its chest and loud enough to buzz through every weary bone in Kyle’s body. It was a sound that pinned him into place. “Oh my God,” he breathed, almost involuntarily. “Oh my God.”
It was locked onto him, all one thousand pounds of it, just a mass of teeth and claws and muscle absolutely laser focused on its next meal which was currently trying not to shake so hard he fell out of the tree. Could wolves climb? Was that a thing they did? Big cats could climb sometimes but the only dog Kyle had ever seen get anywhere near to scaling a tree was a golden retriever that was immediately lured away with ice cream before it could so much as dent the bark with its paws.
This thing was not a retriever. This thing could crush Kyle’s soft, fragile skull between its jaws without much of a second thought.
Fear kept him rooted to the spot. Fear also refused to offer up any ideas outside of stay here until you starve.
The wolf growled again, a higher pitched note worming its way into the noise. It lifted itself onto its hind legs and stretched languidly, its front claws resting against the tree trunk. Kyle, momentarily stunned at its sheer size, could not breathe.
It made a lap around the tree. Then once again, faster this time, more restless, like it was getting frustrated. It growled, low and deep, enough to rattle Kyle’s bones into absolution and he clung onto the trunk tighter, tucked his knees closer to his chest and breathed slowly. It wanted him down. That much was clear.
Kyle could not even begin to articulate how much that was not going to happen.
The river rushed underneath him. The branch Kyle extended far enough to sit directly above the rushing water and the next thought Kyle had was very Hal Jordan in spirit which made him hate it all the more. Given the options he had currently, however, whether it was being mauled to death or used as target practice, he figured he’d take his chances with the water.
Slowly, he inched his way forward. The tree supported him, although only barely and the grip he had was shaky at best as his whole body shook the entire branch so much that the wolf perked up, following him his progress inch by miserable inch.
When he found himself situated at the thinnest possible point, where Kyle couldn’t go any further without risking the entire thing snapping, he sucked in a deep, trembling breath. Inside, he was cursing every single person who put him into this situation, from Hal and his stupid plans to Ganthet for even giving him the ring.
The wolf growled below, more incensed than before somehow. A very clear, very pointed warning: don’t you fucking dare.
Kyle held his breath and fell anyway.
Kyle had figured this would be something like a humiliation ritual from the first moment they stepped into Pott Industries. The lady at the desk with her auburn hair swept up into a neat twist took one look at them and then gaped soundlessly, even as Hal slung a casual arm over the counter. “Hey there, doll,” he said, flashing his ring for the silent foyer to see. “You got a second?”
“I—I—”
Superheroes probably weren’t regular clients around here. Kyle could ascertain that much. “We were just hoping it’d be okay to ask around for an open investigation,” he said quickly, before Hal could open his mouth and say anything.
“Warrant?” she asked faintly.
“We’re just asking questions.” Hal grinned, laying the charm on thick. “We can start with you if you’d like?”
The woman’s jaw tightened and she sat up straighter. Mentally, Kyle breathed a sigh of relief when she snapped, “I’d like to know who you were hoping to question.” At least Hal would stop being like this.
“Anyone,” Kyle cut in. “The investigation is related to missing persons cases. Some of the victims worked here and any information would help us out.”
She stared at them for a long moment as if to study them before pressing a small button on her keyboard and leaning into a microphone beside her. “I’ve got two capes in the lobby Mr Pott. Say they’re here to question our staff for an open investigation.” A pause, where her lips pursed tighter and tighter. Then, “Thank you, sir. Mr Pott wants you restricted to the lobby and ground floor until he’s able to take visitors. He’s in a meeting currently.”
“How long?” Hal asked, more tense now.
“He won’t be ten minutes. In the meanwhile, you can question me.”
It felt a little unfair to tower over her but she met their gaze evenly, with enough bite in it to make Kyle squirm the slightest bit. “Can I get a name, then?”
“Maria.”
“Okay.” Kyle pulled out a photo from the ring’s pocket dimension and laid it in front of her. If she was surprised by this trick, she didn’t show it. “This is Nathan Seychelles and he went missing about a month ago. He used to work here. Did you know him at all?”
Maria tilted her head. “He was in HR,” she murmured. “We didn’t cross paths much but I knew him.”
“Police report says that his mom reported him missing on the 8th of August,” Hal drawled. “That was a Friday. Did you see him at all?”
“We finish early on Fridays,” came the cool response. “We all go home after lunch here. I can’t recall seeing Nathan eating with us.”
“Did he have a meeting or something?”
An odd look passed over her face though it was gone before Kyle could call it out. “No. No, he just…he was smoothing something out. Putting out fires. That’s all he ever did.”
Kyle leaned in closer the barest amount. “Do you remember what exactly he was dealing with?”
That got him a very sharp look. “No one was murdered in these facilities, if that’s what you believe. No, Nathan finished work, debriefed with his supervisors and likely went home after realising it was late. My apologies if you feel as if I’ve misled you.”
“No problem at all.” Like a breath released, Kyle and Hal moved back in tandem. “Thanks for the insight, Maria. Would it be alright if you gave us a number so we could keep in touch?” Hal asked before Kyle could stop him.
She laughed then, humourless and razor sharp. “I can have you thrown out, cape or no cape.”
“Worth a shot,” he said through a laugh. “But seriously, if you feel as if you could give us more information, feel free to get into contact with the League. We have a tip channel for civilians.”
“Of course.” Her lips pursed once more, displeased all of a sudden. “Right on time. Mr Pott will see you now.”
The current spat him out somewhere downstream, far enough for the trees to have thinned out considerably. Kyle crawled up the bank, waterlogged and miserable down to the bones. The chill had truly set in now and without dry clothes, he couldn’t get away anymore so he shivered so hard that his limbs barely responded properly, dragging himself across mud, river stones and damp twigs until he clambered over the edge of the bank and he could collapse.
Before his body could shut down on him, Kyle pushed himself up on both arms, as shaky as they were and crawled the last few feet forward towards the bent shape of the few skeletal tree coverage he could find. Under the pale, bare branches he glanced at the bleached sky and heaved out a breath to take stock.
The ribs were still bad. His head was worse. The side of it felt tacky with blood which only barely avoided getting into his eyes. One shoulder felt wrong and the rocks and water had left claw marks across his arms and legs.
The water in his lungs came out in dribbles. Every half minute, Kyle’s body would convulse and another stream of it, lukewarm and bitter with bile, would leak out of his mouth and drip onto his clothes. He couldn’t move, given the trembling, could hardly breathe with the shudders wracking his lungs and his eyes were so very heavy but Kyle was alive. Somehow, at the end of all of that, he was still alive.
He didn’t feel very alive. He felt tired. Wet. Cold. A little more than murderous.
Limbs still twitching intermittently, but sure that he’d gotten most of the water out, Kyle grabbed at the bark to lever himself up. On unsteady legs, he went on to look for his wayward, idiot, stupid, asshole, shithead partner.
The woods weren’t empty. Kyle knew that plain as anything. At least five people out there were looking to mount his head on their dining room wall or whatever the hell rich people did with hunting trophies, and only one person within proximity could be considered even remotely an ally. Given the ratio of enemies to friends he had in this situation, Kyle would rather stay hidden and not risk it.
Unfortunately, he had enough of a conscience to want to make sure Hal wasn’t dead yet.
“Like a cockroach,” he whispered hoarsely to reassure himself. “Keeps on coming back. Just like a cockroach.” Then, thoughtfully. “Irradiated cockroach.”
A snap ahead had Kyle dropping to his knees, heart hammering. When the moment passed and nothing shot at him or ripped him to pieces, he got up and his knees protested the whole way. There wasn’t as much pine on the ground here. The leaves were the dry, crunchy type but partially soggy enough to muffle him just enough to move quickly. To the sparse trees, he stayed close. Enough to be within arm’s reach if anything unwelcome showed itself, and he hopped over the rocks as they came, though he kept tripping despite his efforts. The water took his coordination, if not his life, and Kyle figured that was probably the same thing here.
In a forest of nothing but grey-green and silver, the beige blob stuck out like a sore thumb. It lay on the ground but the colour felt rich to Kyle’s eyes and he stumbled towards it, out of reach of his trees. To both knees, he fell and gathered the jacket up in trembling hands, bunching it between his fists and pressing it against his still-damp face.
Jordan was still stitched to the breast and his cologne clung to the fabric. Its owner was nowhere in sight but his cologne still clung to the fabric. Close, Kyle thought, on the knife’s edge of hysteria. He has to be close.
The jackrabbit of his heart slowed into a pace more like death. Somehow, it felt as if the air had left Kyle upon this discovery and now he wheezed for it. The compartmentalisation had been going so well too and now he was shredding himself apart, heaving into a piece of fabric while trying to keep himself together.
A first attempt to rise to both feet ended in failure. Kyle sank back into the dead leaves and stones and choked on every subsequent breath that left his lungs. He was still blinded by the jacket, a self-inflicted disadvantage. How could he run from a bullet without his legs, his eyes? Twitching, he tried again. A little more success, though only barely. Kyle got to kneel, to push the flat of his foot into the ground before he pitched forward and gasped at the jolting sensation.
Still blind, still trembling. The wind howled and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He was so cold, weighed down with river water and blood. He almost shook too hard to function, though Kyle still pulled the jacket away and wrapped it carefully around both shoulders. For a minute, one precious minute, he sat huddled under faux warmth in the most vulnerable position he could’ve picked. Then, finally, he moved.
The good thing was that Kyle was no longer thirsty. All of his desire to drink had been thoroughly tamped out after his brush with drowning. Hunger was a problem. However, bullets were generally faster to kill so hunger would have to take a backseat for now.
His feet dragged and tripped enough times to nearly warrant having to sit down again. The area was rife with natural little traps, pale stones, smooth and cracked. Weirdly oblong, Kyle thought when he bothered to look down. The muck only barely covered how much these things gleamed in the weak sunlight. They almost looked like—
Kyle turned to the side and heaved, his stomach suddenly very unhappy with this turn of events. “Oh God,” he whispered and retched again. It was mostly water and bile and bitter brown-red dirt-like stuff that was a real treat to hack up.
It felt like a severe overreaction. Kyle had definitely seen bones before. When he knelt and picked one up with a trembling hand (long, thick, heavy, unbalanced with the swollen head of a massive joint on one hand), it was all the confirmation he needed.
When he lifted his eyes to survey the rest of the stones and confirm their colour, their shape and size, the realisation was muted. Kyle had stumbled into a graveyard. Kyle might’ve also been the dumbest person in the hemisphere, even if Hal was still alive.
The police were gonna love this one provided Kyle didn’t join these bones. Hal would too. Nothing here was fresh, though. Kyle could soothe himself with that little fact, that he didn’t have to see a man decaying in the leaves, but the shock was a great one, near cataclysmic to his nerves. He needed to get a grip, to move, to remember this place for his report because the leg bone he’d just picked up belonged to someone once alive and surely they’d like to not be buried incomplete.
There was that hysteria again. Kyle wanted to lie down and laugh so loudly the trees came alive. There were no birdsongs, no buzz from insects, no cries of little mammals. The quiet was maddening and Kyle, in this pie wedge of hell, was beginning to goddamn lose it.
Snap! said the broken branch. The edges of Kyle’s tired psyche fluttered to attention. A good ninety percent of the things alive in this forest to break that branch were out to kill him. Given the odds, he was facing one of them.
The bullet whistling past one ear cinched it.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered to the poor corpse as he hurled the bone he was clutching at the source of that bullet.
What Kyle was rewarded with, as he gathered his wits for an escape, was a chorus of swearing. “You little shit,” snarled one man, all soft features if it weren’t for the hunting rifle he was wielding. One of his associates bled uncontrollably from his nose, whining up a storm. Kyle’s satisfaction knew no bounds. “You’ll pay for that.”
“Found me,” Kyle sang to himself, eyes flicking to the trees in search of the horrible eyes. He’d need to make this quick, then.
Mr Pott was not alone. Hal and Kyle emerged from the crystal elevator into an office filled with an array of furnishings that would probably make someone’s grandparents squeal in delight. Vintage leather chairs sat in one corner and were shadowed by a lamp that had probably been around for two centuries and bookshelves built into the wall. There was an old timey bar, unmanned right now, with more whiskey loaded onto it than Kyle was sure a single person could ever drink in a lifetime. Behind the bar, mounted onto the wall, was the stuffed head of a wolf. He averted his eyes, choosing to focus instead on the dark oak semicircle table in the middle, where three men were seated.
The one in the middle had a little name plague before him that Kyle took a single glance at to confirm. “Mister Pott,” he said, and kept a straight face because saying it out loud was just a little funny. “We were hoping to speak to you for our investigation.”
“Of course.” He had a smile that would be charming if Kyle didn’t immediately feel on edge. “Please, sit. Drinks?”
“No,” Hal said firmly, nothing near polite but just friendly enough to dim the tension. “We’re on duty. Another day, maybe.”
“Of course.” He spread his hands to the two others, eyes twinkling as he said, “My associates, Brunn and Grimmore.” Those were familiar names. Heads of different companies and just as subtly unsettling but more importantly, two more persons of interest: at least ten victims worked beneath them each. “We were just wrapping up our meeting and they decided to stay. I hope it wouldn’t impede you boys.”
Hal didn’t give any indication that he was miffed by the slight. “Of course not. The more the merrier.”
Together, the two of them sank into leather-backed chairs opposite the three men around the table. Kyle hated the feeling of being outnumbered. Hated it more considering that the men were absolutely outclassed by two Lanterns which only unsettled him more.
Now inside, Kyle noticed a few details. Aside from the wolf’s head on the wall, there were other hunting trophies. Mostly pelts, of which there were two spread out under the armchair in the corner and under the table. One of the men wore a bracelet: solid gold and sharp teeth. Kyle clenched his teeth and forced himself not to shudder and instead to speak.
“There’s been a string of missing persons cases concentrated to New York. We have reason to believe that whoever it is happens to be targeting your employees.” Kyle put the photos down, face up and close enough that Pott could get a good look. “Have you noticed anything strange lately? Anyone suspicious or any behaviour among your staff that you thought was weird?”
Pott shook his head slowly, thought Kyle thought his expression was less shock and something more measured and careful. “Nothing at all. How long has this investigation been open.”
He exchanged a glance with Hal. “We’re not sure,” Kyle said slowly. “It was passed onto us by the local PD.”
“And we wouldn’t be able to tell you even if we did know,” Hal finished. “Confidentiality.”
“Of course. I’m just curious, is all.” Brunn, off to the side, picked at something in front of him. On first glimpse, Kyle genuinely thought there was some kind of scaled creature clutched in his hands. It was dark and shiny, long and flat. It took him longer to realise that it was just a sheet of metal. Maybe a watch, but Kyle was deterred from looking closer when Pott said, “Are you sure I can’t offer you a drink?”
“Positive,” Kyle said quickly. “But yeah. Anything weird or out of the ordinary you’ve seen? Anything at all?”
Grimmore leaned forward, his cheek cradled in one hand. “I’ve always been suspicious of that assistant of yours,” he said to Pott.
Pott rolled his eyes, reaching over to shove his friend. The other hand slipped under the table for a second too long. “You just don’t like gingers. Ignore him,” he said to Kyle and Hal. “But no, I can’t say I’ve seen anything suspicious. Do you have a leading theory for what might’ve happened?”
Hal tensed beside him enough to make Kyle hesitate before answering. When no one stopped him, he continued. “We’re looking into all possibilities.”
“I mean,” Brunn huffed, “missing people? Pretty dark shit, man.” There was something off about the cadence of his voice. Kyle’s skin crawled. “You think there’s a serial killer out there?”
“Targeting who? HR? ‘Bout damn time.”
That brought a chorus of laughter to life. Hal’s jaw was clenched so hard that Kyle half worried for his teeth. The rest of him desperately wanted to get out right at this second. He moved his hand over, pinkie tapping at the back of Hal’s glove which earned a twitch of acknowledgement. Their eyes locked sideways lock enough for Kyle to flick his head towards the elevator.
Hal, still grinding his teeth to dust, nodded just enough for Kyle to see. “Right.” Kyle stood and cut the laughter off. “Well, if there’s anything you’d like to inform us of, please reach out. We’ll be in touch too.”
“Leaving?” A sour look crossed over Pott’s face. “So soon?”
“We have work to do,” Hal said tightly.
When they turned to the elevator, they found it blocked by half a dozen men in simple, white attendant’s uniforms that definitely weren’t there before. Kyle’s heart leapt to his throat immediately but Hal was already moving like a bulldozer, intent on smashing his way through to safety no matter what it took.
That was not what happened.
One young man, face utterly blank of anything discernibly human, launched himself at Hal. He didn’t go down—Hal was practically a brick wall at the best of times but it was enough for three more of them to pile on. That’s when Hal went down like a sack of bricks, sputtering furiously as eight hands went straight for his ring and pried it free.
Kyle, of course, never stood a chance.
His shield had only just flickered to life when two forces slammed straight into him and sent him tumbling to the floor with a grunt. He squirmed, fought and his hands closed around empty air, with no weapon to speak of. Someone held his head down, pressed his temple to the floor so tightly that a headache had begun to build.
When Kyle’s neck prickled, he felt the effects immediately. It was a slow cresting wave of fuzz over his senses and body. A great big blanket laid over his chest, his mouth, his nose, designed to suffocate him into forceful sleep. When he moved his neck to one side, a monumental effort, he saw Hal dead to the world as well. Kyle could only swallow the panic as it came. He had no air to do much else.
“…one do you…the wall?” said a faint voice to his right.
“The pretty one. Scrawny one…much of a…”
Laughter. It followed him into the darkness as his eyelids slid shut against his will. Kyle’s ringless hand twitched against the ground in a final, futile attempt to fight. Nothing happened and he sighed as everything slipped away completely.
“…gonna be a real treat.”
It felt distinctly unfair that they all had rifles. Hunting rifles, no less. This could’ve been an advantage if he were smarter but Kyle was tired and waterlogged and haunted by horrible eyes at every turn and all of this was making too much noise so who goddamn knew what would stalk out of the trees at the first opportunity?
He launched himself at one, the closest one. Green shirt, name like Jacob probably? Jake? Jeremiah? The name situation made him pause mid-tackle, and his shoulder slammed into the guy’s chest only enough to make him stumble and lose his grip on his weapon for a moment too long. Rookie mistake if Kyle was counting but he was too busy trying to think. “Jebediah?” he asked slowly, meeting blazing blue eyes.
“What?”
“Your name,” Kyle clarified. “Is it Jebediah? I’m blanking here.”
An incredulous look. “Jeremy! Jeremy Pott! I own half the clothing industry you fucking idiot!”
“Oh. Right.” He nodded sagely, interrupted by a swift crunch in his jaw as a fist met it side on. Ow. Embarrassingly, everyone's names had slipped his mind. He needed to get this head injury checked now.
God, what was he doing? His mouth stung from where teeth had ripped the flesh of his cheek but Kyle straightened before the butt of that rifle could come down on him again, just barely swaying out of the way. His leg kicked out and delivered a sharp blow, between the legs. Also not fair but the guy had a gun and what was Kyle to do anyway?
He went down with a howl and dropped the weapon entirely. It fell into Kyle’s waiting palm and he whipped it up sharply, taking aim and firing at the rest before he could think otherwise.
Bang!
The bullet went wide. He was glad for it, partially, because Kyle couldn’t stomach actually killing someone right now, but all of this was extremely unhelpful. And his ears were ringing, an added bonus he didn’t ask for at all. But then the others were coming right at him, all in camo which Kyle thought was dumb because what vegetation was there to hide in on this stupid, miserable, dead island? They were wannabe hunters at best. And Kyle wore green better anyway.
Of course, the pile of bones was only a few feet away. He didn’t have to go far to dig up a pale skull, bullet still lodged in its head. He didn’t want to either.
Wannabe hunters, sure, but they’d had enough success in this trade for Kyle to warrant staying sharp.
He drove himself forward, because hesitation was death, because cowardice would get him shot faster than he could blink. The bullets were near useless to Kyle: the rifle was too long for short range combat and he never claimed to be a sharpshooter of any kind but it was hefty enough to swing by its barrel, the butt just barely missing one man in favour of nearly embedding itself in a tree.
And there was the panic. Kyle wondered if any of their other victims had fought back. He chased that thought from his mind. They would’ve. They had to have.
“Get him down!” one barked, throwing his body, all flab and soft angles, right at him. These people were not made for combat so when Kyle recovered the rifle and swung down, hard enough to crack something when it impacted his shoulder, he was sent backwards, howling. “Fuck!”
“Come on!” he challenged, darting forward once more. “Come on! If you wanna kill me, don’t expect me to lay down and bite the bullet!”
A shot snapped at the air left of one shoulder. Kyle didn’t need to dive to miss it, but hindsight didn’t help him at all so he sidestepped anyway, so quickly he nearly overbalanced. The man who shot, further back having run away, snarled and spat at him while he reloaded. Fear shone in both eyes.
There were two down, both groaning and writhing. Kyle would’ve been lucky to break bones with the force he’d used but he had no time to dwell. Instead, he moved.
One gun came down on him, which he blocked with the barrel of his own, both hands braced to hold it tight. His shoulder yelled at him loudly and one arm buckled under the strain, forcing Kyle to duck under the incoming blow and barrel forward, the crown of his head meeting the soft flesh of a torso.
He was rewarded with a loud gasp. The body around him scrunched up instinctively and Kyle stumbled sideways to freedom, just barely getting able to fumble with the gun in order to whack the man across the back of his head. Down he went, crumpling into a pathetic heap.
Three separate people jumped Kyle before he had the chance to recover. He choked at the sudden pressure from all sides and gripped the rifle in his hands hard enough for the indents to start cutting into his skin. One elbow landed in Kyle’s already bruised ribs and he grunted loudly, jerking to shake the offender off, panicking when nothing came of it. He tried again, a dog-like motion fuelled by desperation as someone got enough of a grip on him to be able to strike their knuckles against the back of his head, over and over and over.
Each blow disrupted something fundamental and sent shockwaves through his skull, ringing both ears and sharpening the agony from his head injury into a white-hot point. He cried out hoarsely, and fought harder. The rifle was no longer in his hands but he had them free now, to rip and rent and scratch. Kyle knew he’d found an eye when he was met with a scream and an ungodly amount of blood.
Shit.
The bad shoulder jarred which whited out his vision long enough for Kyle to lose track of everything and end up with one cheek pressed into the ground. His head spun—he felt sick and the bile trapped in his throat was climbing rapidly despite his attempts to swallow it down. “Wait,” he rasped, squirming, making himself a bad target, hard to hit for the bullet that would bury itself in his brain. “Wait—”
A leg in front of his vision, maybe poised to jerk back and kick his teeth in but Kyle didn’t give it the opportunity. He wrenched his good arm out from underneath him and dug in, bloodless fingers catching skin and fabric and digging until he heard a yelp. Then, he pulled the man down and himself up. It was a strange exchange of power and far from seamless but Kyle was on his knees now, the rifle in reach. He let go of the leg and struck out. His fingers met the barrel and closed around it. Then, he swung.
The crack of a jaw breaking was one that would very likely haunt Kyle’s nightmares in the coming months. For now, he focused on being alive enough to have those nightmares. Grunting, dropping his weapon, Kyle stood and went for the last, man standing, if barely because he’d finally managed to scrape himself together. Jebediah himself.
He gave himself no time, no hesiataion and pushed forward, one arm locked under Jebediah’s throat as he slammed him against the trunk of a dead tree. Fear shone fever-bright. Kyle officially did not care anymore. “I came here with another man,” Kyle got out through his gasps for air. “Tall, white, brown hair. Where is he?”
Jebediah’s lip was split. He shook under Kyle’s grip, or maybe that was the hypothermia setting in and making Kyle tremble uncontrollably. But he hardly looked like a slick businessman anymore.
Those bloody lips stretched into a toothy smile. “Around,” he said, more a hoarse whisper.
“Where?” Kyle was coming off as desperate and he knew that, knew that he needed to tone it down and keep himself in check but Hal’s jacket was heavy on his shoulders and he was barely holding on by a thread himself. “Did you kill him? Is he still on—on the mainland?”
“Around,” Jebediah repeated. “Surprised he didn’t get you first.” The grin grew wider. “He’s the real catch.”
“What?” The tightening of Kyle’s chest, slow at first, was now rapidly constricting his ability to breathe properly. Was that the river water? He hoped it was. “Talk!”
Pressing his elbow harder into Jebediah’s throat was fruitless. He only laughed a choked gurgle of a sound and flecked blood onto Kyle’s face. “Goddamn idiot. Don’t you get it? You keep this up, you keep making noise and you’ll just bring him here. Then we’re all fucked. How many shots got fired?”
Kyle opened his mouth to respond but was beaten to it by a deafening, Bang!
“Three,” said a voice to his back as Kyle’s leg gave out under him. The pain trickled in later, a sort of muted throb that quickly turned itself into an inferno. He gasped for the air he couldn’t find, momentarily deaf with the ringing of both ears, blind with the blood encroaching his vision. Trembling hands sought the wound and brushed past the wet spot on his hip again and again. His hip.
When Kyle tried to rise, his legs wouldn’t cooperate. His toes tingled, his thigh lit aflame and he sat with the rest of his weight on the other side, leaning on both hands for support, useless. No bullet had found its way into his brain thus far. No, because when Kyle looked up, the hunters were all waiting. Upright, covered in blood and waiting.
Jebediah gave him a once-over, cruel indifference in his eyes, and said, “Sit nice and pretty for me. The real hunt doesn’t begin ‘til everyone’s all together.”
Before Kyle could ask what that meant, a growl split the air.
He shuddered. It was involuntary, a full body movement that rattled his bones. The growl was otherworldly, primal, furious. Kyle shuddered again, the hairs of his neck pricking up to attention. His arms shook under his weight. His whole body shook, fit to fold like a house of cards.
The wolf was maybe thirty feet away, head held low but its eyes were trained on Kyle, brown and soul-wrenching, glistening in the damp light. Its teeth were set into an ugly scowl, red already and its fur had only grown more muddy since Kyle had last seen it.
And Kyle couldn’t move.
A guttural noise left him, part plea, part gasp. He smelt of fear, he knew he did and he didn’t know how much fear animals were prone to sensing but—
The wolf growled again, somehow even more vicious. Kyle’s arms gave out to the sound of a handful of rifles loading. He needed to move, needed to see and breathe and get out as soon as possible and yet not a single muscle in his useless body would obey him.
“Ready,” someone to his right said, quietly although the wolf’s ears still pricked up to attention. “Fan out. When he gets close, we—”
It was so fast. So fast. The wolf crossed the thirty feet between them in three long strides, bounding up to them in less than five minutes flat and Kyle yelled out loud, alarm and fear mingling in a desperate sound that echoed off the trees. The rifles fired and he tucked his head low, hands locked and braced over the back of his neck to make himself small.
There was no stillness, no quiet, no sudden oblivion. There was screaming, though Kyle was sure none of it was his own.
When he dared crack open one eye, the wolf was five feet to his left standing over a bleeding man, screaming for his life. Kyle promptly rolled to one side and screamed into his teeth as his injured hip cried out in agony. He reached, found the barrel of a stray rifle and held it close to his chest as he dragged himself forward, part crawling, part clawing his way through the dirt. The snarling, the snaps, the yelling and the frantic pops of desperation pounded against Kyle’s fragile skull.
He made himself sit up, lurching to the left with the bullet in his pelvis and dug the fingers of one hand deep into the ground. If he could haul himself up, if he could just clamber high enough into the branches, he’d be safe for the time being. Never mind hunger and thirst and the imminent threat of bleeding out. If he could just—
Another wicked snarl at Kyle’s back, gurgled around blood and bits he imagined which only got Kyle to scramble faster, dragging the rifle with him as he crawled onwards. The yelling had died down but Kyle’s ears still rung so loudly he was sure he’d gone deaf or done real damage to himself.
There was a thump behind him, too close, and he whirled around. There they were, the man and the wolf, muzzle and teeth stained with thick red. It dripped onto the dirt below its massive paws as it moved closer, step by agonising step.
“Oh God,” Kyle wheezed, fumbling with the rifle. His legs propelled him backwards and his hands shook wildly as he got a grip on the weapon. One bullet in the chamber, already loaded which meant all he had to do was aim and fire.
Abruptly, he stopped moving when his back hit the bark of a tree. Cornered like an animal, trembling like a leaf, he picked up the gun and aimed. But Kyle Rayner had never been a good shot.
It went wide because his grip was loose and he could hardly keep himself together. Kyle’s teeth chattered so much they slid through his tongue and filled his mouth with blood. The scent made the wolf’s head perk up just enough for him to raise the useless gun once more, if only as a last ditch attempt to shield.
His heart was in his throat, head spinning wildly and the rush of blood only made Kyle dizzier as he shrank back against the tree. There were bodies strewn about, bloody and still and he didn’t dare look too close, didn’t dare count them. He kept his eyes on the wolf.
It huffed and was close enough that the hot air hit Kyle’s face. He shuddered in the wake of it, raising the weapon once more. Was it wolves he had to appear bigger around? Was he supposed to play dead here? Was running away even an option with how massive it was, how quickly and quietly it had moved. Kyle thought, as black spots brimmed at the edge of his vision, that it would be more of a mercy to pass out now. Better than his last memory being that of teeth and claws.
The monster loomed and Kyle shook and wheezed underneath it. It leaned forward and he flinched so hard that the rifle slipped from his grip entirely, caught easily in the beast’s mouth before it tossed its head and threw it several feet away in one fluid motion before locking its attention back on Kyle, who had stopped breathing entirely, head dipped low to his chest in a futile attempt to protect his jugular.
If his lips could move, maybe Kyle might’ve even said the oath. As it stood, he was nothing but a chip of ice.
A massive muzzle came down to nudge at the exposed part of Kyle’s cheek and he couldn’t help the ragged gasp that slipped from his mouth. But the wolf drew back then, peering down imperiously as if to study Kyle and then rolled its eyes.
The wolf. Rolled its eyes.
What the fuck, Kyle thought in the same moment it tipped forward to nudge against his cheek again. He flinched, one hand flashing out to shove its nose away but he only got rewarded with a rough tongue attacking him instead. No teeth. No pain beyond everything already inflicted on him.
“What th-the fu-fuck,” Kyle said aloud, staring. Was he dead? Was the hard part over?
The beast huffed again, straight into his face, and nudged him with a little more urgency. It whined at him plaintively, prodding with a vengeance like it wanted him to uncurl. Then, it licked his cheek, a sensation that made Kyle shiver all over. It didn’t hurt.
Was this a prank? Was Kyle being messed with? Or had he lost his mind finally?
It whined, right in Kyle’s ear and the sound was so piercing that he jerked away unconsciously. This exposed his ribs on accident but before he could recover and curl up again, the wolf was right there, pressing right against his chest. Kyle yelled, raspy and wordless but there still weren’t any teeth. Just a very determined muzzle occasionally bumping into the broken bits. His ribs, his shoulders, its nose following the trail of blood down to the hole in Kyle’s hip. It growled at the bullet, like it was pissed. At what, Kyle wasn’t sure. His head spun so much that he desperately needed to pass out.
The wolf’s head snapped up again and this time, its attention was on his head. Kyle screwed his eyes shut when those jaws got closer, turning his face away so quickly his skull collided with the bark again.
For that, he got another whine and another lick, this time smearing the blood on his temple further and leaving a whole lot of slobber behind.
“What the fuck,” Kyle said again, slurred this time. He was definitely still alive. Kyle could feel his own heart racing in his chest, his wrists, his head. However, this was so completely bizarre that Kyle might as well have been dead anyway. “What—what are you—”
It snapped its jaws with a muffled yelp and glared, cutting him off before turning away. Its attention was on the men, some still moving. Kyle chose not to look too closely for his own sense of sanity.
He should—he needed to make a break for it before whatever this was wore off and Kyle officially got downgraded to becoming a chew toy. The wound at his hip still bled but it was sluggish. Still, blood loss made him sick and dizzy and the pain rendered all movement excruciating. But—but he had to try.
Grunting under his breath, Kyle leaned forward to plant his hands into the earth. From there, he carefully levered his way up onto his knees, bottom lip pinned between both sets of teeth. His gut roiled and his arms shook and he was absolutely certain his legs would give out on him when he got back up but what else was there to do?
Kyle must’ve made some kind of noise thought because the wolf suddenly went very still and tilted its head so one eye could freeze Kyle in place. The following growl was the clearest stay put Kyle had ever heard. It didn’t matter anyway. His arms gave out immediately after.
He could crawl. It wouldn’t be anywhere close to dying on his feet but maybe, if there was some kind of ditch or river to fall into, he’d have a chance. The prospect of dragging himself over rocks in this condition had Kyle nauseous but it was a chance.
Before he could gather his strength, however, the wolf was padding back to him, a satchel held carefully in its jaws. Without any preamble, it dropped the bag on Kyle’s lap and sat heavily on its haunches, staring him down in anticipation.
Could—
Could wolves feel anticipation? Was that—was that possible? Or was Kyle hallucinating?
He didn’t move at first, his hands hovering over the satchel like it was a bomb primed to detonate the moment he breathed wrong. But the wolf rolled its eyes again and pointedly looked at the satchel and then back up to Kyle. Open it. Oh God, he was really losing it.
His fingers fumbled with the straps and buckles. It took five minutes too long to tug the flap open and even longer for Kyle to rummage through. The main pocket was completely empty save a few shreds of tissue. There was a side pocket accessed by a tiny zipper that Kyle could barely close his fingers around. The wolf, somehow, was patient, though its eyes didn’t stray from Kyle the whole time.
Kyle pulled out three tiny objects and held them up in his palm. Two filled him with a dizzying rush of relief: his and Hal’s rings. The trembling grew worse when he tried using his other hand to slide his ring back on. Kyle kept missing, embarrassingly enough, but its presence when it finally slipped on was warming and bone deep. He exhaled through his broken ribs and felt whole finally, even if there probably wasn’t enough charge to fight or fly very far. He certainly wasn’t in any shape to escape the wolf now, ring or no ring.
Hal’s ring dropped into Kyle’s lap for the time being. He refused to acknowledge the lump in his throat, the fear bubbling under his skin in favour of the third object, the one thing that the wolf was most laser focused on.
It was…odd. Something alien, he thought, jet black, thin like a card but in a sort of oval pressed flat at the long sides. It hummed in his hand and he couldn’t tell if it was electricity or latent magic which, given Kyle’s profession, should’ve been easier to distinguish. Still, he held it out to the wolf which huffed like Kyle was stupid.
As if to continue this terrifying, strange nightmare, it lifted itself onto his haunches and extended its paws out to him, flexing, as if to say no hands. So Kyle took the little thing back and watched as the wolf stood, turned around and shoved its left hind leg into his face.
After the initial shock of fear, Kyle peeled his eyes back open to stare at the—God, what was that?
A sort of ankle shackle was wrapped around the fur and it was made of no metal Kyle had ever seen; dark purple with a golden hue only visible when it caught in the light at very specific angles. It was seamless, strange, and it hummed the same as the thing in Kyle’s hand. When he didn’t move, the wolf snarled and shook its leg harder, nearly hitting Kyle in the face.
“What do you—what do you w-want?” he stammered, thoroughly not understanding. Or maybe, just maybe, the shock and hypothermia had rendered him stupid.
As if, as if, it could somehow understand, the wolf spun back around, intent on making its point extremely clear. It pointed with its nose at Kyle’s hand and then spun halfway to twist and point at that purple band. The motion was clear, the wolf wasn’t attacking and Kyle was on a ledge that teetered dangerously close to complete hysteria.
“You—you want me t-to get it off?”
A chuff, a rough swipe of its tongue against his cheek like approval. It spun around again and stuck its leg out. The key, because that was it surely was, shook in his palm. He had no clue how it worked, could see no way to insert it into the shackle. He tried pressing the key against it, careful not to touch the floor. When nothing happened, the wolf growled. Kyle tried again. Still nothing.
“You—” He choked on his dry tongue and had to spend a moment swallowing to reclaim his speech. “You wouldn’t happen to know how to get it off, would you?”
The look he got in response to that was nothing short of unimpressed. It even shook its head and for some inexplicable reason, Kyle felt his throat close. The eyes, this close up, looked terribly familiar and terribly annoyed. Maybe he was getting close to death or madness or something.
Instead of crying, he reached out to carefully feel around the device. It was smooth all over and the metal was so polished that it felt slick, almost. The way it was clasped felt tight enough to be snug, to not slip or fall or restrict movement but not enough to cut off circulation. Still, Kyle couldn’t slip a single finger in.
Around the back, however, there was something. Just the tiniest groove, barely anything. A split in the middle that ran vertically from one edge to the other. He moved quickly, before the wolf could get violent on him, shifting close enough to practically hug its leg. With the flat edge of the key, he slotted it into that groove and found it didn’t quite fit. The key was too big. In desperation, Kyle push down with all of his strength.
Click.
It didn’t let up immediately but the key was embedded maybe halfway into the metal now and Kyle was sure he could get it in all the way. The wolf stood still, so still it was unnerving so he made a final push, forcing all of his weight into the motion as he slammed his palm against the key to press it all the way in.
In the next second, the shackle exploded into oblivion.
Kyle blinked up at the sky, wheezing as his vision returned to him. White still blurred at the edges, mixing with dark spots and it was taking every ounce of will to stay awake. His back ached from impact and his legs twitched and the waistline of his pants were probably soaked through with his own blood. Kyle couldn’t move even if he wanted to.
Through his fractured eyes, his ringing ears, he caught the faint throes of movement and thought, now, it’s happening now. Now that the sky had exploded and Kyle was officially bleeding out, the wolf would come by and finish it all. Now, with his throat exposed and no strength to cover it, teeth would close around his jugular and rip it right out. Now, it would be now, it had to be—
“Kyle?”
Oh, never mind, he was already dead.
“Kyle,” Hal’s voice said, louder, more insistent. A blurry shape filled his vision, not that Kyle could be bothered focusing on it. “Hey, come on. Stay awake, man.”
The sound that left his mouth was meant to be a let me sleep. Instead, it came out more like an indignant wheeze. Hal’s ghost made a sympathetic sound and pat his cheek. He had his ring on already, was dressed in uniform and somehow covered in blood and dirt despite being dead.
“I know it hurts,” he soothed, pressing something to Kyle’s hip loud enough to make him whine. “I know. Ack, Jesus,” he hissed, fumbling with the compress. “Shit. Not used to having opposable thumbs again. I’ll adjust, don’t worry.”
Who are you talking to? Again, Kyle’s mouth could only conjure up a vague approximation of syllables for him.
“Hey.” His voice was remarkably gentle. “It’s okay. Save your strength. Guy and John are on their way and we’ll be out of here in no time.”
Kyle’s head spun. His body hurt. He’d never been more hungry or thirsty in his life. All he could taste was blood and he was so cold. And this man had the audacity to tell him it was okay.
“Sc-screw yo-ou,” Kyle got out.
To that, Hal threw his head back and barked out a laugh. “There he is! Thanks for keeping my jacket warm. It’s the least you could’ve done for me after trying to drown yourself and giving me a damn heart attack.”
And Kyle thought, his indignation dissipating, how the hell did you know about that? You just got here.
So he asked, teeth chattering, as Hal pulled him up to wrap a construct blanket around his shoulders, “Where were-were you?”
The grin he got back was downright wolfish. “Oh buddy. I never left.”