Ride or Die

Absolution

Chapter 22: Absolution

You know, your kills will never leave you -

"So," Tom said slowly. "You're telling me Greyback is dead?"

"Yes," Draco replied, unflinching. "He's dead."

They'll sleep with you at night, like little ghosts -

Tom paused, his gaze flicking over the three of them.

"Who killed him?"

They'll visit you in your low moments -

Draco willed the silence not to last.

"I did," Theo said.

They'll mock you -

Draco stared stonily forward, and Tom tilted his head. "How?"

Theo's mouth twitched. "Successfully on the first try."

And then no high is ever high enough.

Tom's eyes flashed unpleasantly.

"With," he pronounced slowly, "what, exactly?"

"A gun," Theo said. "My gun."

You'll see them every time you close your eyes -

Tom arched a brow.

"You say it was - " he trailed off. "Painless?"

You'll feel them in your lungs when you fucking take a breath -

Theo shrugged. "The goal was effectiveness," he offered blandly. "He is effectively dead."

"I see," Tom permitted slowly.

Is it this life that destroys us, or were we fucked from the start?

Tom glanced at Greg, who was bent over slightly, nursing a sore abdomen. "And you, Goyle?" he prompted. "You were there?"

Greg shook his head. "No," he muttered. "Scabior gave me a bit of a run around," he added in explanation, at which Draco and Theo both grimaced; a glance at any of the three of them - Greg especially - would show that particular phrasing to be an absurdly inaccurate understatement.

Draco had very much regretted rendering Theo's gun ineffective by the time they'd made it to the warehouse, arriving in time to pluck Greg from a hail of bullets. Scabior, despite his employer's failings, had managed to scrounge up enough heavy artillery to manage a show, and in the end, getting out - particularly once reinforcements had arrived and Greyback's subsequent absence had been more than a little conspicuous - had been far more difficult than getting in.

Though, somehow, neither task had been quite as uniquely challenging as this.

Evaluation, as it were.

Judgment day, as Theo called it.

"Some aspirin would be fucking peachy," Greg remarked.

"I'm sure it would," Tom agreed, and then turned to Draco. "Surely you were there when it happened," he murmured neutrally, meeting Draco's eye. "After all, I would not expect you to leave Theodore's side in such a moment of crisis."

If you can't kill me now, you never will -

You can haunt me all you fucking want -

Draco cleared his throat, shaking himself of the memory and nodding. "I was there," he confirmed. "Theo took the shot. One shot, just like he said," he repeated, latching onto truth. "Greyback was defenseless the moment he entered the room." He paused, remembering. "His ammo had already been cleared out," Draco added quickly, but by that point, Tom no longer appeared to be listening; his gaze had already traveled vacantly back to Theo.