Inkling

7.2 Something Wicked

1:00 P.M.

It had been, admittedly, a while since someone had punched Adam Wink in the face - even longer since he'd seen a Webley service revolver. He'd seen military men in Whitechapel with older models. He'd seen them in Spain, in Chicago. Like the British were following him everywhere he went.

Except this man was not British, his family maybe, but he was American through and through. One could tell because they were always yelling about immigrants and people being on their 'property' and other such things. Which is to say: he was so obviously a W.A.S.P. that Adam knew already that the stranger had laid eyes on his black skin and was acting on certain feelings. Feelings being hatred and superiority. Adam watched the way the man twirled the revolver around his finger with the skill of someone who had nothing better to do. The six barrel cylinder swung back and forth. Six cylinders. Six bullets.

But he tucked the revolver into a holster on his hip, mustache twitching when he sneered. Adam sneered back. He was suddenly so angry, so righteous for a cause he had hardly known. He had always seemed to go places with bigger problems than the color of his skin. Chicago had been different, of course, but he had aligned himself with someone powerful. Proved himself to the boss and he was set. Now all he did was run.

Well he was not running this time. The weight of the Bull Dog revolver in his own pocket was reassuring, but he took the most solace in the knife, literally, up his sleeve.

They were both in motion, closing the small distance between like two dueling lions. They attacked as such, feral, vicious. Using their hands like claws, their elbows like clubs. Adam grabbed the man's head with both hands and heard a thick crack when knee made contact with nose. The man howled. Adam tried to shove him away, tried to be done with it already. But the American grabbed Adam around the knees, knocking the both to the ground. He pinned Adam's arms under his knees. The first punch was the hardest, but he seemed to lose enthusiasm.

Adam had not.

He struggled until he could free an arm. Which was lucky because the man had decided to use his revolver. The one on the ground grabbed the arm of the one with the ammunition.

"Who'd you knick that off of, huh?" Adam grunted, bending the wrist attached to the revolver hand in a way that wrists are not meant to bend. This, unfortunately, caused the American to fire a shot into the ground several inches from Adam's left ear. A tremendous amount of ringing ensued and Adam found his voice distorted in his own ears when he screamed, shoving the bigger man off of him. A slew of unsavory things tumbled out of the white man's mouth as he did so. Things that had been used by others to insinuate that Adam was not a person at all.

He suddenly had a clear picture in his mind: his ten year old self, looking up at his white mother. His mother who was trying to pretend he did not exist.

Without really trying, Adam found himself on top of the man, knife in hand. He saw the fear in his eyes. The anger. The hate. He saw his own rage reflected back at him, the only difference was that Adam's rage had direction. This man's rage did not.

It was a reaction. It was a choice. Instinct. Adam knew what he was doing as he held the knife in both hands, raised it above his head, and drove it into the man's heart. There was no blood at first, and he did not seem to die. Adam pushed harder and twisted. He heard the man's last breath seethe out through his parted lips. Deep blue eyes went from shock, to pain, to nothing at all in seconds.

Adam watched the blood seep through the cream shirt. Climbing its way out farther and farther. He watched it pool around the body, watched as it soaked the knees of his own trousers. A finger twitched and then all was still. The last movement the man would have in this world.