“Could be nothing, no one’s reported anything official yet, but it’ll give you a jump across town.”
Danny pushed from the wall, turned on his heels, and lightning jumped away. There was some muffled arguing between Andre and Lynn, then the comms went quiet like they’d turned off the mics on their end. Danny didn’t care.
He knew he was being childish, foolish. He knew catching one criminal after failing with Ludgate wouldn’t fix anything, couldn’t fix that he was broken even when he had a few good days under his belt. On a dime, the pain and anger and emptiness reared its head and reminded him that he failed more than he won, and was it really worth it? Was any of it worth it?
Answers that should have come easily to Danny eluded him. If he couldn’t escape the pain, then he wanted to inflict it on someone else. That’s what Cho was for, he told himself; that was the whole point of leading Cho on. But right now he wanted to deliver pain with his fists and not care about the consequences, and for that he needed a face he didn’t know.
“Danny, I think you should come back to the precinct,” Lynn said, calm and deliberate. Andre remained quiet.
“I’m at 7th,” Danny ignored her. “Which building?”
Lynn sighed.
Eventually, Andre responded, “302. The smoke shop.”
Danny spotted it, and not seeing any activity in the front, he dashed around to the back. There hadn’t been many people on the street, and the alley behind the smoke shop was utterly dead—save the man trying to get the deadbolt off the door that he’d already picked open and had propped. He had his hand shoved up inside the opening, fiddling with a screwdriver as he tried to take the deadbolt off completely.
He didn’t see Danny.
The usual banter Danny would have used to startle the man stayed still on his tongue. He rushed him, hauling him up by the shoulders and spinning him around to press him into the wall beside the door. The screwdriver clattered to the ground, the man’s eyes wide in surprise. His hair was chin length and greasy, face unshaven, eyes clouded probably from drugs. Danny instantlyloathedhim—perfect.
“Hey, man, uhh…it’s not what it looks like!”
“Danny, there’s a cruiser only a block down,” Lynn said. “They’re headed your way. Just—”
“Ah!” the thief cried out, grimacing as he looked at each of his forearms that Danny had pinned to the wall with his superior strength.
Danny knew he was strong even without using his lightning. His constantly regenerating cells made it easier to push his body beyond normal human limits. He wondered how easy it would be to break the man’s arms when he could feel the delicateness of the bones beneath his fingers…
“Zeus, man, come on,” the thief said, head lolling back against the wall as he continued to grit his teeth in pain. “It hurts, man. I’m just jonesing for a smoke, ya know. Don’t mean anybody no harm.”
Danny tightened his grip.
“Shit, shit,stop!” the man cried louder. “I’m sorry, okay, I’m sorry! Gimme to the cops already!”
“Danny, what are you doing?” Lynn demanded. “The police are almost there.”
It was like a warning, like a threat—you better stop or the police will catch you.Catch you doing something bad, something wrong.Danny was the good guy. Danny was the hero. Danny was the one who always had to be on the right side of the law, be as near perfect as possible, or people ended up dead. He just wanted the opposite to be truefor once.
He didn’t want to kill the man in front of him, but would it really be so wrong to hurt him enough to make sure he never hurt anybody else? When did breaking and entering escalate? What would this man have done if someone else had caught him tonight instead of Zeus?
Squeezing the man’s arms tighter, Danny felt the bones beneath his grasp begin to creak.
The man screamed and it should have made Danny want to stop, but as his anger waned, the awful numbness that was so much worse replaced it. Where had all those happy feelings gone in so short a time? And all because Ludgate got away when Danny had told himself, convinced himself it didn’t matter.
But it did matter. It always mattered. Healwayshad to bebetter.
“Danny!” Andre shouted so loudly over the comms that Danny flinched. “Stop.”
All at once, Danny released the man’s wrists, who immediately whimpered and clutched at his arms, bowled over with tears in his eyes.
“What is wrong with you, man?! You’re fucking crazy! Crazy! It’s just a damn smoke shop, man! I didn’t hurt nobody!”
But Danny had. Danny had almost…
He felt sick, like he might throw up.I’m not like him, I’m not like him, I’m not like—
“Who, Danny?” Andre finished, startling Danny that he’d muttered that out loud.
