#Runway of the New Shura

[zegalba]

Yoshitaka Amano: Runway of the New Shura (2005)

[kaishighat]

Believer|| A Self Para

A lot happened the night of July 28th 2017. Jeb Hiatt and his band debuted their album in The Tunnels. Lydia Reagan and her family held a charity event for the children’s hospital, and the NYPD Narcotics and Homicide units made their way down to the docks for what was going to be a shit show. Kai was shaking. The thought of Alexie and his goons taking out him and his friends and the innocent people involved scared him to death. His stomach was in knots. Kai didn’t want to do this. He didn’t want to be here and he didn’t want to be in this situation. But it was a full on war. Ian and Shura had suited him up in a vest and he took the oath to be a temporary agent. The fucking irony. “Hey, it’s gonna be alright, yeah small one?” Shura spoke, giving Kai’s shoulder a squeeze. He didn’t feel like it was going to be alright. They were literally on their way to take out a hive.

The entirety of New York City’s Russian Mafia.

And he was helping them do it.

These people that once helped him take care of his makeshift family, gave him a job and invited him into their homes, he was about to send them to prison. But on the flipside, they were killing people. Innocent people. When you’re so used to your life being able to be black and white, it’s hard for anything to start turning gray. But he had to do it. Because Ian and Sam had a point. What made him think that regardless of loyalty, they wouldn’t one day come for him anyway?

They parked out in an alley, Kai looking across the van over at Sam who was watching him in the rearview mirror. “Ya good kid?” She asked, her voice low and serious. He just nodded. His stomach was turning more and more by the second. “Heads up, black car three o’clock.” Ian spoke before anyone else could say anything, everyone getting ready to roll out. “Just stay behind me, yeah? You’ll be fine. We couldn’t do this without you.” Kai nodded at Sam, looking over at Shura, waiting for him to give the signal. He turned his hat backwards, swiftly and quietly getting out of the car with them. Most of this, he learned when he was a drug runner. It was virtually no different. Only now he was leading the police around a maze instead of strolling in like he owned the fucking place.

The squad quietly made their way around, the muscle men behind them doing their best to make quiet arrests, while Kai, Sam, Ian and Shura made their way into the core of the building. His heart hadn’t stopped pounding. The thing that surprised him the most was how quiet it was when they were walking through. Radio silence. Once one gun went off it’s like they didn’t stop, and suddenly everything was happening so fast. “Kai! Twelve o’clock!” He didn’t even think, he just turned the direction, avoided the shot fired at him, and pulled the trigger. And his blood ran ice cold.

“Fuck is he dead?”

“Don’t think about it.” Was the only answer he got. “Oh my god. Oh my god oh my god.” Shura came up and slapped him across the face, adjusting his hat in the same motion. “Get ahold of yourself! It was you or him! You or Him!” Kai nodded, swallowing hard but still looking at the body on the floor, Shura groaning and going over, kicking the gun away and examining the body. “You just shot him in the arm, he’s passed out from shock, but he’ll live. Okay?” That made him feel better, whether it was a lie or not, but he needed to focus. So he pulled it together and followed the group. They just needed Alexie. Anyone else was a win, but they mainly needed Alexie. But once they got down into the main of it all, it was a fucking mess.

Shit was being fired at them left and right and he didn’t know if he should just hide so he followed their lead, taking cover behind the crates and the giant bags of whatever the fuck was being sold. Sam was calling for backup since what they had didn’t seem to be enough. There were a few scuffles, it had been awhile since Kai had been punched in the face but he still knew how to throw one, this time aiming for the legs and arms to put down the people that were after him. Bullets were flying past him and everything just seemed so unreal to him. Like he wasn’t even in his body as he followed the three veterans. And then, he was hit in the chest, knocking the air right out of him, and he realized this was definitely real.

Ian grabbed him by the back of the vest, dragging him to safety. “You alright?! You hit anywhere else?” Kai shook his head, sitting up straight and doing his best to get air back in his lungs. “I’m good! I’m good I’m alright!” He shouted over the noise of it all, pretty sure he was going to be deaf by the end of the night. Suddenly it was quiet, and they knew that wasn’t good. Shura peeked up, stepping out for a second and looking in all directions. “Clear!”

There was a ring through the air, and then he was on the ground. The three popped out, Kai firing off and hitting a couple more people that came out of hiding, Sam and Ian following suit. “Sam, cover me!” Ian ordered, the woman nodding and following, letting Ian drag Shura back to safety. “I’m out!” She called, looking at Shura’s gun in the middle of the floor. Kai looked around, he could hear the commotion outside of the other officers trying to get everyone that ran under control. “Where’d he go?” He looked at Sam, who was also looking around, trying to find their main target. The two emerged, Kai standing in front while they tried to make their way to the gun on the floor. “Guys…. Guys!” The two turned around, Kai immediately raising the pistol to take the shot but stopping when Sam put her hand on his arm. “You couldn’t get a clean on, you’d hit Ian right in the neck.”

“The thing you need to know, is that I always win.” Alexie smiled at the two, his attention turning to Kai. “See, I treated you well. I opened my home to you, you met my kids and taught my son and daughter, I got Marley into an amazing school, and this is how you repay me, Kai? I’m disappointed.”

“I’m not a murderer.”

“Don’t try and take the high road. You’ve done just as much damage, working with this… traitor and that woman that would’ve gladly put you behind bars a few months ago doesn’t erase that.” Kai knew that. He knew that at this point, Alexie had the upperhand. “But I’ll settle for Ian right now.” He cocked the gun he was holding, and Kai was suddenly reminded of the first night he worked with the man. How he asked Kai to man handle a victim into his car and then made him stand out there on the cold docks while he shot him at point blank range.

He remembered how helpless he felt.

But he wasn’t helpless now.

“Pull the trigger and I’ll put you down, Alexie.” He cocked the gun, staring right back at the man.

Sam looked at Kai, her eyebrows furrowed together. “Kai you wait for an order to fire that weapon. You wait for a clean shot.”

“Why he’s not wrong. If I wasn’t of use to you, you would have me in a jail cell right now. I could just pull the trigger and take the work off for you guys.”

“You’re not like him, though, you are not that person! You have a choice to walk out of here or become him.”

Things were starting to go back to slow motion.

At an arms length away, Alexie had the gun to Ian’s head. Shura was shot and bleeding badly and Sam was out of bullets, so it was only Kai with his gun drawn. Torn between the people he loved and becoming what he was thought to be. Proving everyone right. He couldn’t handle it. His thoughts went to Marley and how she’d have to grow up without him, the worry he’d put his family through, and Noelle. God Noelle. He’d have to leave her behind, and that’s not the life he wanted. His mind flashed to his friends and all the holidays to the day he got engaged. To the times he wouldn’t be there for if this went wrong like Jeb’s graduation and watching his fiance walk the runway. And it really hit him.

He could never be like Alexie.

“What do we do?” He asked, his voice shaking as the words left his mouth and glanced at Sam, scared to take his eyes off the two in front of him.  “What do we do?!” He yelled, voice now cracking as he was on the verge of tears. He’d already shot more people dead than he ever wanted to in his life, there was no coming back from that, but he couldn’t end this peacefully either. There was no clean line, and he wasn’t about to put down his best friend and the person that took care of him; no matter how bad of a man he was. Sam was thinking. There had to be a solution to this or backup had to be on the way, something had to come through and end this well for them.

“Kai listen to me. You’re a smart kid. Just put the gun down and we’ll all walk out of here. I promise you.” Alexie spoke, his charming voice soothing him but only for a moment. He was trying to get into his head. He was trying to turn him back onto his side.

Alexie, the man with no fears, was worried.

“Kai don’t you dare put that gun down. You keep it drawn, you take the shot when you get one.” Sam ordered. “He doesn’t have a shot!” Alexie about laughed at the idea. “Look, Kai, I’ve protected you, yeah, you put the gun down and we can all walk out of this. Have I ever lied to you?” And everything went still.

Kai wanted so badly to put the gun down and believe that Alexie was telling the truth. But with both Sam and Shura begging him to keep it drawn, his attention fell on Ian. The harsh truth of the situation crashing down on him like the first wave from Katrina.

“He’s never gonna let you go, is he?” His voice was void of anything now, swallowing the lump in his throat like he just swallowed the truth.

Ian just shook his head, the panic setting in on Alexie’s face. “No, Kai. He’s not.”

“There’s, uh…. There’s no way out of this is there?” Again, he shook his head, a calm expression on his face as if he’d already accepted his fate. As if he knew what was going to happen before any of this started.

“No.”

Kai started breathing heavier, he wasn’t sure what to do. “Kai you need to take the shot.” Sam spoke, the panic on her own voice, knowing just as well as Ian and Shura and Kai and Alexie, there was only one way this would end. Knowing that if anyone else were to get hurt, it was on her and it was time to accept that.

“It’s okay, Kai. It’s okay.” Ian spoke across to him, Kai shaking his head, his arms slowly lowering, no matter how much he tried to keep them up. “I can’t do it. I-I-I can’t…” The tears were streaming down his face now, taking the dirt and sweat and blood that had built up on his face with them. Ian’s face, unwavering as he offered Kai a sad smile as he spoke.

“You got this kid, it’s gonna be alright.” 

He didn’t hear anything after that. He knew Sam was begging him to just take the shot, to get this over with. And he knew Alexie was now telling him he shouldn’t take the shot. That if he would just put the gun down they’d be okay. He saw Shura bleeding out. He saw the dust settling onto the warehouse floor.

He heard the whistling of a bullet.

And then he saw Alexie Romanov drop to the floor, the gun going off and the bullet hitting a crate of marijuana. With the simple squeeze of a trigger, an empire was dead. “Goddamn Gomez! About took his head off!” A sniper from the window up top killed the man they all wanted to take to prison. Help arrived in the knick of time, and then it was over. People were rushing in to sweep the rest of the warehouse and neighboring buildings, and the small group was escorted outside.

The next thing he knew they were lifting Shura into the ambulance, he was laughing but Kai was pretty sure he wouldn’t be once he woke up again. Everyone on the other side was handcuffed and just waiting to be hauled off and taken in. He let Sam take the gun from his shaking hands, and let her take him over somewhere he could sit while she went off and reported or did whatever was left for her to do. Across the way he saw Ian being questioned. The ambulance was patching up a few cuts and bullet grazes on his own arm, things he didn’t even feel until now he had so much adrenaline running through him.

Eventually wives and husbands and girlfriends  and boyfriends were showing up. He watched as Anja ran over to Ian as he sat in the ambulance getting his own wounds tended to. He saw Sam looking like she was about to pass out, but staying awake anyway. He saw what he assumed was Shura’s husband or boyfriend or whoever run to the ambulance, tears running down his face as the male suffering from blood loss tried to comfort him. And he realized all these people put on the line, for this one moment, everything. “Hey, Hiatt.” Sam walked over to him, standing in front of him, almost like they were back on the steps of his construction trailer just a few short weeks ago. “Call your fiance. It’s over. And meet us back at the squad room on Monday for debriefing.” And then she walked off. All that work and worry and effort all for this.

And with his good arm, he picked up the phone and called Noelle.

“Hey…”