Beastars: A Steep Fall From Light

Chapter 58: Checkmate

Yahya sprinted after Razor, the only sounds he heard being his heart hammering and his feet slamming on the ground. The terrorist was taking a roundabout way to somewhere, but the horse followed him. They had left the grounds and were in the streets now. Razor barreled past animals and shoved them aside as Yahya ran through the trail he was conveniently leaving in his wake. He turned down an alley and Yahya sensed a trap. He slowed and picked up a piece of steel rebar before turning down the dark passage to the other side of the block. He saw Razor hastily trying to pull a motorbike from between two dumpsters. Yahya ran forward raising his rebar. Before he had a chance to swing it down, someone else stepped from the shadows with a metal baseball bat and swung it at his lower back. The metal cracked his spine and he lost all sensation in his legs. He collapsed. Trying to stand he realized that he had no control over his legs. He was paralyzed. In sudden fear he pulled himself to a wall and turned to face his attackers.

"See?" Razor asked through his mask. "I told you it would work."

"Sometimes I wonder why I doubt you," said the wild dog. He too wore a mask, but it only covered his mouth, keeping his entire upper face clear. Which was why Yahya was able to identify his species.

"Stay with the bike," Razor said to him. "If anything happens, I want you to get out of here."

Razor took the baseball bat from the canine and walked up to Yahya. He squatted down and looked him in the eye, through the glass pieces in his mask. He reached up and pulled down his hood, undoing the strap to his mask and pulling it off his face. He looked down to his hip as he clipped it onto his belt. He looked up and surprisingly, had a very attractive face. His eyes were soft too, which was unexpected. He ran a hand through the hair on the top of his head and licked his chops with a forked tongue. Yahya saw two snake fangs folded up on the roof of his mouth. He cleared his throat, the scales on his throat and under his chin rippling with the movements.

"Do you know who I am?" he asked.

"Your Shoon-"

"No, not my name," he interrupted. "Everyone knows my name now. What I want to know is, do you recognize me?"

Yahya just stared. Should he?

"What about this?" he asked, turning his head to reveal a jagged scar running horizontally across the back of his skull like a crack in a vase. "Do you recognize your handy work?"

He looked back and Yahya shook his head. The hybrid chuckled to himself.

"Really?" he asked. "Let me help you out, let me set the scene. April twenty-seventh, eleven years ago in the shallows of the Back Alley Market at 10:53pm. Ringing any bells?"

Yahya shook his head.

"You're gonna have to tell him who you are," the wild dog said, straddling the motorcycle. "He doesn't remember."

"Don't worry," Razor said. "I have complete faith he has some semblance of intelligence. I mean, I remember my kills. Their names, the dates they happened and where. All killers do."

"If your saying I killed someone-"

"That is exactly what he's saying!" the wild dog shouted. He realized his mistake and looked around to see if anyone heard.

"Are you saying I killed you?" Yahya asked.

"Yeah," the hybrid said, laying one end of the bat on the ground and leaning on it a bit.

"But you're here," he said. "Do you realize how dumb that sounds? Is that what all of this was about?"

"No," Razor said. "Don't let your inflated sense of self-importance get in the way. My business was destroyed within two months by an enemy and I did it back to them in a week. The wolf I'll let live for now, as a new development has come along that could be quite interesting. The lizard is his grandfather so why not? The chairman will be an interesting one to play with. And don't you remember what I told you? You're the only one I need to kill. You still owe me."