Retrospect

Thirteen

We made it back to the safety of the basement in the alley, back to the others with the moon rising into the star-speckled sky. The gray-eyed man, Reeves, pulled Miles by the arm as soon as he made it down the folding stairs. Reeves was muttering something under his breath as Miles looked around the room at the others. Everyone was sitting at the table like they'd been when we'd left. I was starting to think they were just robots that only did the chores around the room.

Reeves dragged Miles through a doorway, into another room and slammed the door. I limped over to the table then and sat down, nursing my calf.

The girl named Ana was sitting back in a chair and looked over her shoulder at the door Reeves disappeared into, a smug expression on her face. "Someone's in trouble," she muttered, chipping her black nail polish off. My gaze went to the door, then back at Murl who was still standing near the stairs.

Everyone was silent in the room, so the voices behind the door carried through easily. The sound began at a reasonable level, but then I could hear both of their voices erupt into a shouting match and Ana rolled her eyes, everyone sitting patiently like this happened all the time.

I flinched as Miles threw the door open at last and whirled around to face Reeves, walking backwards. "You haven't gotten anywhere because you haven't even tried!" Miles spat.

"I'm not talking about that! What you did will ruin any chance we have of breaking in!" Reeves yelled, emerging from the other room. I hadn't heard what they were arguing about, but from the bit I did hear, it had something to do about everything we'd done that day.

Miles cursed at Reeves and smirked. "I don't know how your son loved you," he shook his head and snickered, "you became a coward and a liar ever since you left him to die—"

Reeves shoved Miles into the wall behind him, face inches from him as he unleashed it all. "You don't talk about that! You don't know anything about that!" Reeves then pulled his arm back and punched Miles square in the jaw, forcing him to look at him.

Miles glared at the gray-eyed man with hate-filled, dark eyes, taking this as a challenge. I didn't think I ever saw him flinch. "I know enough to say all you cared about was saving yourself," he sneered.

It was the last straw. Reeves pulled out a gun from his jacket pocket and pointed it at Miles' temple. "Say it again," Reeves forced, "go on. Say it again." He brought the gun closer so it was touching Miles' skin.

Even with a weapon in front of him and death lurking, Miles grinned. "Looks like you finally picked one up," he said plainly, gesturing to the gun Reeves held with shaking hands.

That just about made Reeves explode. He knocked Miles hard across the face with the steel gun and I thought I heard someone gasp. The tension in the air was so thick it could be snapped like a wire. Nobody at the table moved, though I could tell Murl wanted to say something but didn't. Instead, he shifted around as he watched everything unfold.

I saw Miles slowly turn his head up to meet Reeves' gray stare, a trail of blood dripping from his nose. "Then kill me," he rasped, smirking again and shrugging, "you've killed before."

Reeves aimed the gun at him again, hesitating. The man at the table with the ponytail, Alvin, was the one to interrupt all of this. "Pat, let him go," he said. The room was completely silent. Even Ana was watching the exchange with interest.

Reeves didn't move at all. His index finger lingered on the trigger for only a moment more before he pulled it away from Miles. Then he turned around without a word and began walking back into the room where their argument had started. A bead of sweat travelled down his forehead and his mouth was a thin line as he slammed the door behind him, shaking the room.