The rain was a blessing Kevin didn't deserve. It hammered against the roof of the stolen sedan, drowning out the sound of his engine, the sound of his tires, and the sound of his own hyperventilating breath.
Kevin sat in the dark, parked two houses down from the target. He popped the cap off a small orange vial with his thumb. Two pills. Dry swallow. He waited for the chemical click, the moment the amphetamine hit the bloodstream and tightened the loose screws in his brain.
It hit. The shaking in his hands didn't stop, but it changed frequency. It went from a tremor of fear to a vibration of energy.
Matches, he thought, gripping the steering wheel. John calls me matches. He doesn't know. Matches start fires just as well as lightning.
He looked at the house. It belonged to Silas, the lieutenant Arpika had failed to turn. It was a modest two story brick building with a manicured lawn and a minivan in the driveway. It was disgusting in its normalcy. It was a fortress of the mundane, pretending that men like Silas didn't pay for that minivan with blood money.
Kevin opened the car door. He didn't check for traffic. He didn't check for surveillance. He just moved, propelled by the toxic cocktail of drugs and shame.
He crossed the wet lawn, his expensive shoes sinking into the mud. He ruined them without a second thought. They were just things. He was here for essence.
He reached the back door. It was locked. A standard deadbolt. James would have picked it. James would have slipped a tool into the mechanism and whispered it open.
Kevin smashed the glass pane with the butt of his pistol.
Crash.
He froze, waiting for the alarm. Waiting for the lights.
Nothing.
Silas, confident in the truce, confident in the rules, hadn't armed the system. Or maybe he thought living in a civilian zone protected him.
Kevin reached through the jagged hole, unlocked the door, and stepped into the kitchen.
It smelled of lemon polish and leftover pasta. It smelled like a home.
Kevin hated it. He hated the warmth. He hated the magnets on the fridge holding up spelling tests. Every piece of domestic evidence was an accusation, a reminder of the life he was too broken to have and too weak to destroy properly.
I am the storm, he whispered to the dark room. I am the consequence.
He moved through the house. He bumped into a high chair, sending it skidding across the linoleum with a screech. He froze again, gun raised, heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs.
Silence settled back over the house. Heavy. Judge like.
He climbed the stairs.
His reflection caught him in a hallway mirror. He looked grotesque. His silver suit was crumpled and wet. His face was pale, sweat slicked, eyes dilated into black saucers. He didn't look like a legend. He looked like a junkie looking for a fix.
He looked away. Don't look at the rust. Look at the iron.
He ignored the master bedroom. He didn't want Silas. Silas was just a man. Men could be bargained with. Men could be threatened.
He wanted the leverage. He wanted the line that Sam said couldn't be crossed. He wanted to cross it again, deliberately this time, to prove that the first time wasn't an accident. To prove he could do it without crying.
He pushed open the door to the room at the end of the hall.
It was painted a soft lavender. A nightlight shaped like a turtle cast a dim, green glow across the room. Two twin beds.
Kevin stepped inside. The carpet muffled his footsteps.
Two girls. Maybe six and eight. They were asleep, tangled in blankets, oblivious to the monster standing in their room.
Kevin walked to the space between the beds. He stood there, breathing through his mouth to keep the sound down. He raised the gun.
The weight of the weapon felt immense. It pulled at his arm, dragging him down.
He looked at the younger girl. She had dark hair fanned out on the pillow. Her mouth was slightly open. She looked peaceful.
Do it, the voice in his head hissed. It sounded like Asrit. You are an asset. Liquidate the liability.
Do it, the voice sounded like John. Be the fire. Burn the forest.
Kevin pointed the gun at the girl's head.
He tightened his finger on the trigger.
He waited for the coldness. He waited for the icy detachment that Asuma described when she talked about James. He waited to feel like a god, or a ghost, or a force of nature.
He felt nothing but bile rising in his throat.
His hand started to shake. The gun barrel wavered, drawing invisible circles in the air above the sleeping child.
"I am not soot," Kevin whispered. Tears leaked from his eyes, hot and humiliating. "I am not a child."
He tried to squeeze. He commanded his muscles to contract. Just one pull. One loud noise. And you are feared. You are a legend.
But his finger wouldn't move.
The girl stirred. She let out a small, soft sigh and rolled over, turning her back to him.
The movement broke him.
It wasn't a sudden realization of morality. It wasn't a burst of conscience. It was the crushing, undeniable weight of his own weakness. He couldn't do it. Not because it was wrong, but because he wasn't strong enough to be evil. He wasn't James. He wasn't even Marco.
He was just Kevin.
He lowered the gun. His arm fell to his side like dead weight.
He stood there in the green light of the turtle lamp, weeping silently. He looked at the children he couldn't kill, and he hated them for their innocence. He hated them because they were alive, and their breath was proof of his failure.
He backed out of the room.
He didn't storm out. He didn't run. He retreated. He walked backward down the hall, down the stairs, through the kitchen.
He stepped out into the rain.
He fell to his knees on the wet grass of the backyard. He retched, dry heaving into the mud, his body rejecting the adrenaline, the drugs, and the shame.
He hadn't pulled the trigger. He hadn't lit the match.
He had broken into a house just to prove to himself, once and for all, that he was incapable of being the monster his father wanted him to be.
Kevin stayed there for a long time, kneeling in the mud, the rain washing the sweat from his face but leaving the stain on his soul. He was not a forest fire. He was just a man who had gotten wet in the rain.
And now, he had to go back to the compound. He had to go back to the War Room. And he had to live with the knowledge that he was exactly what John said he was.
Rust. Nothing but rust.