Drew Karpyshyn - Retribution

The blow left her seeing stars. Dazed and stunned, she couldn’t even roll over to see what was happening behind her.

From inside the office Kai Leng saw Nick get shot, the bullet catching him in the stomach. As the young man gasped in pain and fell to his knees, Kai Leng was already in motion.

He’d seen the pistol fall from Kahlee’s belt; he knew he had to get to it if he had any hope of surviving the confrontation. Grayson tossed Sanders aside, his distraction buying Kai Leng a few precious fractions of a second. He slid across the floor and wrapped his hand around the pistol, rolling over onto his back so he could fire at Grayson.

But the Reapers were too quick. In the time it had taken him to secure the weapon, they’d crossed the hall to where he was lying on the floor. Grayson’s foot kicked the gun from his hand, striking with such force it shattered Kai Leng’s wrist.

The assassin knew it was over. He stared up at the monster looming over him, prepared to meet his end. He flinched at the thunderous echo of a shotgun, his mind taking a second to realize he had not been shot.

Grayson staggered away from him, revealing the source of the blast. Anderson stood halfway down the hall, the stock of his weapon wedged firmly into his stomach as he held it with one hand. His right arm hung limp and useless at his side.

He fired a second time, and Grayson’s body shuddered and collapsed to the floor.

As Grayson lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling and gasping for air, he felt the Reapers abandoning his body. Their vessel broken, they directed their consciousness back into the void of dark space, leaving Grayson alone as the last sparks of life flickered away.

Finally free of their control, he turned his head as the world began to grow dim. He saw Kahlee gamely hauling herself back to her feet, and he smiled.

His head lolled back to its original position, leaving him staring up at the ceiling once again. The head and shoulders of a dark-haired man of Asian descent appeared in his field of view; it took Grayson a moment to recognize him as the one who had attacked him in the Cerberus holding cell.

Life seemed to slow down, and he heard the familiar pop-pop of a pistol, the standard double-tap taught to all Cerberus assassins. As the pair of bullets entered his skull, everything went dark for the last time.

To aim the shotgun, Anderson had to brace the butt against his stomach. When he fired, he had to hold his breath and keep his abs tight to try and absorb the kickback so he wouldn’t pass out from the pain. Despite these precautions, it took him a few moments to recover each time he pulled the trigger.

He managed to score a hit on Grayson with his first attempt; fortunately, with shotguns it wasn’t necessary to be particularly accurate at short range. Grayson was staggered by the first shot, but didn’t go down. Between this blast and the one Anderson had delivered when he caught him in the data archives, however, he had sustained such grievous injuries that it was all the Reapers could do to keep him on his feet.

That gave Anderson time to gather himself and fire again, finally dropping Grayson to the floor. In the time it took Anderson to recover from the kickback of the second blast, Kai Leng had scooped up a pistol from the ground and finished Grayson off with two point-blank shots to the head.

Before the assassin could turn his attention toward another target, Anderson said, “Drop the gun and don’t move!”

He didn’t shout or yell; despite his being dosed with medi-gel, his collapsed lung and broken ribs were too painful for him to take a deep breath. But he knew that Kai Leng had heard him clearly.

The assassin stood frozen, his weapon still pointed at Grayson’s corpse on the floor. Anderson knew what was running through his mind. Could he bring his pistol up and get off a shot before Anderson could squeeze the shotgun’s trigger? He was quick, but was he quick enough?

“Don’t do it,” Anderson warned. “I’ve got you dead in my sights. At this range even I can’t miss.”

To his relief, Kai Leng let the gun slip from his hands.

Anderson had seen the unconscious teenager lying on the floor bleeding from his gut when he’d arrived on the scene, and in his peripheral vision he could see Kahlee trying to shake off the cobwebs and regain her senses after being thrown by the Reapers. But he couldn’t offer help to either one. Not yet. Kai Leng was too dangerous to take any chances with; until he was neutralized Anderson had to push everything else aside and focus on this true threat.

“I want you to take it slow and easy,” Anderson told him. “Gently — very gently — use your foot to slide that pistol over to me.”

He kept his trigger finger ready as Kai Leng complied, ready to fire at any sudden movement; God help the man if Anderson sneezed. The gun skittered across the floor and stopped a few inches from Anderson’s feet.

“Now put your hands behind your head, turn around to face the wall, and get down on your knees.”

The assassin complied, and Anderson finally felt like he had the situation under control. From that position even Kai Leng wouldn’t be able to react fast enough to avoid a shotgun at point-blank range.

“What do we do now?” the assassin asked.

“All this gunfire is sure to attract someone’s attention. I figure the security patrols will be showing up in a couple of minutes. We’ll just wait for them to arrive.”

He glanced over at Kahlee and saw she was on her feet, bracing herself against the wall and trying to get her bearings. She glanced down at Grayson’s body lying just across from her, and then her eyes fell on the boy farther up the hall.

“Nick!” she shouted, racing over to him and crouching down to inspect his wounds.

Anderson kept his shotgun trained on Kai Leng, wary in case he used the distraction to try to escape.

He didn’t move, but he did speak.

“I could have killed you, you know,” Kai Leng said, keeping his eyes fixed firmly on the wall. “But I

didn’t. I have no reason to harm you.”

“David,” Kahlee said, looking up from the body of the unconscious boy. “He’s losing too much blood. I need a med-kit.”

“All I wanted was to stop Grayson,” Kai Leng continued on as if he hadn’t heard her. “My job is done. Just let me go.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Anderson snapped at him. “This is all your fault. Grayson. This kid.

Their blood is on your hands!”

“David!” Kahlee barked out. “I can still save him. But I need that med-kit!”

“Go,” Anderson told her, not taking his eyes off Kai Leng. “I don’t know where they are. Grab one and bring it back.”

“We need to keep pressure on the wound,” Kahlee protested. “He’ll bleed out before I get back.”

“I can’t take my eyes off this guy,” Anderson told her with a shake of his head. “We’ll just have to wait for security to show up. Shouldn’t be long now.”

“There isn’t time,” Kahlee insisted.

“You,” Anderson said to Kai Leng, coming to a decision. “On your feet. Nice and slow. Come over and put pressure on this kid’s wound. Hold it until Kahlee gets back.”

“No,” Kai Leng replied without moving, his voice completely devoid of emotion.

“No?” Anderson repeated incredulously.

“You have a choice,” the assassin calmly told him. “You stanch the flow of blood while Kahlee retrieves the med-kit, and I disappear. Or you keep that gun pointed at me until security shows up and we all watch as the boy dies.”

“You son of a bitch!” Kahlee screamed. “He’s just a boy!”

“It’s Anderson’s choice,” Kai Leng told them. “All he has to do is let me go.”