(Alex Rider Fanfiction) Floating in the Dark

One

I run.

 That is all I know to do.

 She’s dead, and I must get away. Get away fast before they come for me. Because I have just killed the deputy head of MI6.

 So numb, so cold -

 So confused.

 I don’t understand. I have just killed a human being. So why don’t I feel anything? My head is confused, my mind is numb. I don’t feel guilty. I don’t feel disgusted or happy or sad, or even angry.

 Why can’t I feel?

 I don’t know what to do.

 So I run.

 xxx

They knew that he was coming.

 They knew that Scorpia had gotten a hold on him, and they knew that he had found out about the incident on the bridge. So it was only logical that Scorpia would send Alex to kill Mrs. Jones, the one responsible for the whole thing.

 They knew, and they didn’t do a thing about it.

 It turned out to be a big mistake.

 Alan Blunt had wanted to take the necessary precautions. As he had been in MI6 for a long time, he was experienced in all kinds of situations, and had began to expect anything and everything that could happen. He had wanted to set up a bullet-proof glass wall that separated her room entirely in half.

 But Mrs. Jones would have none of it. She held a soft spot for Alex in her heart; perhaps it was because she was a woman who once had precious children in her life. In any case, she had believed in Alex; believed that he never had it in him to become a cold-hearted killer.

 She thought she could calm him, turn him away with mere words. She thought she could reach him, and make him understand.

 But in the end, she had miscalculated. Miscalculated the amount of anger and hurt that could reside inside a boy. Emotions powerful enough to cloud his mind, and make him pull the trigger.

 Because of her miscalculations, she was now dead.

 Alan Blunt, the head of MI6, now watched silently, as a nondescript black coffin was lowered into a unmarked grave. Only he, and a few others from MI6 were there to watch the funeral. All of them, including Blunt, felt some kind of loss. Mrs. Jones had been with the agency for a long, long time.

Once the simple coffin was settled into the ground, each of them walked forward, one at a time, and silently dropped a single white rose onto it. Blunt was last. He watched the rose as it gracefully fell down, a single petal coming loose and floating downwards on its own.

 It was somehow fitting, he decided. Symbolic, and all that. However, before he start to muse on that, he turned, and headed for the sleek, black car that awaited him. His thoughts turned to the problem on hand.

 Namely, that of Alex Rider.

 The idea of a teenage assassin was very troubling, indeed.

xxx 

Nile came to get him.

 When he had called from the phone booth, they had told him to stay put, and wait. There had been no problem in that. Alex had slipped down to the floor of the booth, and sat very still. He had remained motionless, for the entire fourteen minutes that it took for Nile to get there.

 He got out of the car, and walked to the booth, a strange figure with black and white skin. Seeing the still form of Alex inside, he rapped on the side of the booth with his knuckles. “Alex?”

 Alex looked up, his brown gaze somewhat blank. Slowly, he got up, his movements sluggish. “Nile,” he said flatly, coming out.

 “Did you kill her?” Nile abruptly asked, his dark eyes intent on Alex’s face.

 “Yes,” Alex murmured quietly, blankly.

 Nile’s expression lit up, becoming animated and excited. “What was it like?”

 Alex shrugged, feeling too tired and cold to care. “I don’t know.”

 Nile took a look at Alex, finally realizing that the boy was exhausted. “Oh, you can tell me about it later, Alex. But I bet you were excited. It’s always exciting for me. I’m happy for you, Alex; now you’re one of us.”

 Alex didn’t say anything. Nile put an arm around his shoulders, and lead him to the car. “Come on, let’s go home.”

 Home, Alex thought dully. Home to Scorpia.

 Scorpia. 

 He could still see her wide, shocked eyes, filled with stunned horror and hurt. Eyes that seared themselves so clear into his mind. Eyes that shouted out with the sharp crack of a gunshot every time they flashed into his head.