No more running...

The Point Of No Return

It hadn't taken him long to reach the fifth floor. He was just outside her door, he had his gun raised when he heard an all too familiar voice.

"Cub!"

Alex turned to the source of the voice. "Wolf." he replied. The entire of K-Unit was standing behind him, their guns raised. "Don't make me do this, Cub." Wolf had sounded concerned, but Alex thought he was just imagining it.

"Alex." Ben Daniels, aka Fox. "I don't want to shoot you. So would you please just put the gun down and talk to us." His gun was still raised, but if anyone had seen him closely, they would have noticed he was trembling.

But Alex couldn't hear a word he said. He was overcome with rage and rage took control of his actions and his next words. "I don't want to have to put a bullet through your brain, Ben. So if you're smart enough to cherish your own life, you'd let me through."

Ben's eyes widened in horror. He he never seen Alex speak with so much venom before. The last time Ben had seen him, he was Fox, it was in Thailand when Alex was up against Scorpia and the Snakehead. "Alex. Why are you doing this?"

"Because it's MI6 's fault I'm like this! They made me kill, Ben! They took my loved ones away from me! My parents, Ian, Jack! They ripped my childhood right in front of my very eyes! Is that enough to want to kill someone? To take revenge?" Alex's voice cracked when he had mentioned Jack. But he could not cry. Not now. Ben eyes widened. He didn't know that that was what MI6 had put him through. Alex was a fourteen year old, fifteen by now, a teenager who had seen too much for his age.

Ben lowered his gun and took a step forward. "Alex. Listen to me. Do you really think killing Mrs Jones would change anything? Think about it. What's happened has happened, Alex. You can't change the past." He had hoped those words had gotten through him. And to his surprise, it did. At least, for a moment. "Maybe I can't change my past. But I can certainly change my direction." He fired the gun three times, the bullets penetrating the wood. Blood seeped out from the bottom gap of the door. K-Unit was shocked. Alex had just committed murder. That wasn't the plan, Alex knew. But things got too drastic. And drastic things called for drastic measures.

While they were all in a daze, Alex threw a smoke bomb he had gotten from one of the agents at K-Unit. They all coughed as Alex made his escape through the window.

Somewhere in Afghanistan,

Kevin Stoll was one of the new recruits that Scorpia had hired. He knew he was hired due to his useful specialty in the rigging of bombs. He paced around the room. His face was disfigured due to a car accident during one of his army days in the SAS.

As a young boy, Kevin was not educated due to the fact that he was an orphan. His teacher who had taken him in was a wanted assassin from Hungary whom had taught Kevin how to read and write. The assassin had seen some potential in him and had been the one to teach him the art of identification and knife throwing. By fifteen, Kevin was one of the most skilled knife throwers in his village. Although he prefered the identity part to that.

Now, he stood in his office that overlooked the view of busy traffic and noisy highways. The streets were bustling about with cars, stall vendors were trying to get people to buy their products. Kevin had lived in Afghanistan for about ten years now, and he still couldn't get use to the loud noises. There were crowds of people weaving through the multiple kiosks that sold anything from food to jewellery.

There were three files on the table. They bore the names: Alex Rider, Ben Daniels and Yegor Gregorovich. The files were sent to his office five weeks ago and he had long memorized its contents to heart. Kevin had a map of connections planned inside his mind, flipping and examining each and every one of the possibilities and outcomes carefully. There were no mistakes made in Scorpia. He had learnt that after the deaths of both Yassen Gregorovich and Julia Rothman. Yes. Both died due to failures of their own. No mistakes would be made in his book. This was his operation. The new head of Scorpia's executive board had put him in charge of project Hades.

The time had come for Alex Rider to finally be put down to rest.