Whatever Epona wanted to say, she was communicating it through her weapon.
Her pose was tight and confident. There was no hesitation. Her emotional reaction had caused her breathing to quicken, but she was bringing it under control. She wasn't looking down the weapon's sights. The action seemed pointless given the circumstances. Maitho was standing close enough that any bullet that hits him would be fatal.
Maitho realized that his confrontation with the woman in front of him had escalated not merely in the emotional department. When they had first clashed in the cafe, they had access to knives and close-quarter weapons. Barely 24 hours had passed and they were already holding guns, as though their choice of weapons symbolized their ever growing animosity. In all fairness, Maitho felt as though he was avoiding conflict while the woman was embracing it, as though it is what she lived for. Maitho wondered if explosives were next. He wouldn't be the least bit surprised if that were the case.
At that moment, Maitho wasn't certain he could be any threat to Epona. He could feel his muscles recollecting the abuse they suffered from Raiden's power. The sides of his face experienced pulses of pressure with each beat of his heart, as though hands were slapping them at rhythmic intervals. His knees were numb and he had the sudden urge to simply sit down.
But Maitho stood firm, the slight trembling in the hand holding the revolver the only indication of his physical discomfort.
Epona noticed the reaction and it seemed to amuse her. "Feel lik' taking a break Maitho? Don' worray. Ah will mak' this quick."
There might be few groups of people who are brave enough to look directly at the muzzle of a rifle. Maitho wasn't one of them. He had trained to protect himself well, and to react to situations as and when they presented themselves. What he hadn't done – and he never imaged he would have to do – was train himself to look at loaded guns.
"And making it quick would solve your problem wouldn't it?" said Maitho, his eyes traveling from the rifle to the woman's face. "It seems to me that you are using me as a replacement for something that happened in the past."
Maitho knew that he had struck some chord in Epona. The woman flinched, the reaction so quick that if you blinked when it happened, you would miss it. She continued, as though she was pretending Maitho hadn't spoken. "Ye wur not aff been useful tae us anyway. We shuid hae left ye at th' cafe tae go back tae yer shithole of a life."
She wanted Maitho to react to what she said. It would give her the reason to pull the trigger. She would probably tell the others that he was being a little aggressive. Maybe tried to harm her during a conversation. Instead, Maitho focused on his thoughts. "You shoot me, then you shoot the problem. Is that how you planned it in your mind? Tell me something. Was what happened your mistake?"
A quick swallow. A couple of blinks in quick succession. Yet despite the emotions she might be going through, she persisted in her taunts. "Leek at ye. Last wurds of a desperate man who-"
"It was your mistake wasn't it? You messed up and something terrible happened. And here I am, someone who opposed you. Just like how that situation opposed you. Come on. Admit it to yourself so we can get this over with."
Epona was breathing quickly. She opened her mouth to say something, but failing to come up with any words, clenched her teeth in frustration.
Maitho did not relent. "Do you know what I realized? Bevan may not be the toughest. Or the most skilled. But he sure as hell tries to do the right thing. You are just pitiful Epona."
The woman's eyes began to glisten. Somewhere deep within her, a beast wanted to break free and scream to the world. And it seemed she had been suppressing the beast for a long time. "Ye don no anythin' aboot me."
"And I don't want to know. About you or your problem. If you are going to justify redemption with murder, then you are on your own. Now are you going to shoot me? Or are you going to make another mistake?"
"YE DON NO ANYTHIN' ABOOT ME!" There it was. The scream. All the guilt and impotence in the woman was given a voice. The beast within her had a language to communicate. Maitho recollected the first law of thermodynamics. Energy cannot be created nor destroyed. But neither should it be contained, especially if it was growing in intensity.
"I am right here Epona. I am still alive."
Epona raised the weapon to her eye level. Her finger tightened around the trigger. Eyes drenched in tears of frustration and anger, but still focused on the person holding the revolver.
Maitho dropped his hand to his side. He just hoped that if his life flashed before his eyes, it would show him something valuable. That he had done some good. It didn't matter if it was something as trivial as helping the elderly cross the street. He just wanted to enter the darkness with the idea that he was not such a bad person after all.
"Get on with it." said Maitho, thinking that as far as last words go, they were pathetic.
Epona began hissing through her teeth. Her tears were given permission to leave their homes. They flowed freely down her face. A few of them took a voyage from the bottom of her chin to the floor, making soft taps when they landed. She opened her mouth, a silent scream escaping her throat at first. Within seconds, the pitch of her voice had increased to a roar of frustration.
Epona dropped the weapon to the floor, her hands falling to her side. The calm before a storm.
The storm came a quick second later. She clenched her fist and drove it towards the wall. The punch broke through the soft exterior, leaving a fist-sized depression on its surface. Epona repeated the action a few more times, snarling each time she did so. When she was certain that she had no more pent up frustrations to deal to the wall, she placed her forehead on the surface. Her hands were on either side of her face, as though they were shielding her from an attack.
Maitho felt that perhaps the woman had faced an attack in the past. It seemed that she didn't come out of the incident unscathed.
Using her knuckles, Epona pushed herself away from the wall and faced Maitho. "You were willing to die." She got no response. But she wasn't done with her line of thought. "You were going to accept your fate."
Maitho could think of a hundred reasons to not respond to Epona. On the other hand, he could think of only one reason why he should tell her. There was a beast inside him too. His beast was not the snarling and raging type. Not at all. His beast was a resigned type. It had turned its back on life and wanted nothing to do with the future. The beast was on the precipice of a cliff, darkness waiting below. It simply wanted to spread its arms wide and fall into the chasm.
Perhaps in life, there was no light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe the tunnel was endlessly dark, occasionally illuminated by a candle held by another broken soul. Maitho could see that Epona was broken. In some ways, they were kindred spirits.
"I was," said Maitho. He looked into the woman's eyes. If she wanted to see the hollowness there, then she can have a front row seat to all of it.
"Why?"
Maitho did not have to think too much. His reasons were ingrained in his memory, after repeating them over and over again to himself. "I'm just tired, I suppose."
Epona retrieved the rifle from the floor. She checked the chamber before facing Maitho. "Whit aboot saving lives? 'N' a'm only asking to know what yer thinkin'."
Maitho took a deep breath. "It felt good at first. After a while, I think it just felt good because I wanted it to feel good.
"Yoo waant tae dae something by nae giviin' tae many reasons why yer daein' it."
Maitho nodded. "Something like that."
Epona ran her hand through her thick short hair. She held a clump of hair at the back of her head, looking off into space for a while. When it seemed as though she had come to a conclusion, she simply went back to her position near the window.
Maitho took a couple of seconds to look at the woman, who was now keeping an eye on the street. He returned to his chair, placing the revolver on his lap. It seemed that until they resolved the situation with Raiden, they would cooperate. Maiho was fine with that. He wasn't certain about his plans afterwards, but for now, he had bigger problems on his mind.
For what seemed like an uncomfortably long time, when it reality it could have been just a few minutes, nothing happened. During the moment of quietness, Epona didn't move from her position and Maitho sat with his eyes closed, keeping his ears attentive for any sounds from the hallway.
The crunch of glass in the hallway forced both godlike in room number nine to become alert. Maitho shared a look with Epona. He realized that he hadn't told the short-haired woman about the makeshift glass alarm he had prepared earlier. Epona, on the other hand, knew that someone had arrived on their floor. Perhaps it was the fact that the crunching of glass was not exactly a commonly heard noise in a hallway. Especially given the situation.
Maitho went to the door near the entrance of the apartment. He opened it to reveal a small bathroom. When he took a quick look in Epona's direction, he saw that the woman was crouched on the ground and pressed against the wall. Her weapon was trained on the main door. She would present the smallest possible target for anyone who decided to shoot around the corner into the apartment.
It would have helped the two godlikes greatly if the main door was closed. But it was too late for that now. Maitho entered the bathroom and closed the door partly. The room was dark and unless someone paid attention, they would not notice Maitho hidden in the shadows.
Raising his revolver to point at the entrance, Maitho controlled his breathing. He wasn't going to give away his position simply because he was inhaling or exhaling loudly.
A handgun peeked into the apartment. The hand holding the weapon pulled the trigger and a loud retort announced the departure of the bullet from the gun. A split second later, Maitho heard a cracking sound, as though someone had taken a large sledgehammer and whacked it on a wall.
The bullet had missed Epona and found the wall instead.
The hand withdrew. It was just in time. Epona fired a single shot back. The weapon's discharge was louder than the handgun, as though the rifle was showing off who was better. A small portion of the door frame exploded into debris, the bits raining down into the hallway outside. If the hand had still been in its previous position, Maitho knew that it would have received bloody and permanent damage.
Silence. Nothing happened for a while. Maitho heard soft taps coming from Epona's room. She was changing her position.
Maitho counted to thirteen in his head. When it seemed like nothing further could happen, a voice cut through the quiet. "Only when you open the box, will you understand whether Schrödinger's cat was alive or dead."
Raiden. If the godlike of Thor was out in the hallway, then things had taken a turn for the worst.
"And that is what this situation is," said Raiden, his voice loud and crisp. "It is a closed box right now. When either of us make a move, then we allow reality to collapse in on us. Are we going to be alive? Or are we all going to die?"
Maitho flexed his fingers without letting go of the revolver. He was trying to ease imaginary cramps in his fingers, his mind convincing him that he was holding his weapon too tight. A hundred other thoughts tried to make their presence known, attempting to distract him from the situation. His brain was trying to avoid the stress by throwing insignificant thoughts into Maitho's consciousness.
"I wonder who is hiding in that room. Is that you Brigid? No, it can't be. That shot right there was precise."
A short pause. As though Raiden was intentionally trying to drag the situation out for effect.
"Well done Epona. You are as merciless as you are skilled."
The short-haired woman did not respond.
"It makes me wonder," said Raiden. "Have you told Maitho about the fourth member of your team?"
Another silence.
"Wonder what happened to him. Should I just start shouting about his fate? Perhaps Maitho might hear me. Or is he upstairs? I could cover both floors. After all, he deserves to know the truth."
"He is deid ya bastard." Epona's voice was a shout. It was emotional and irrational. Maitho was surprised by her reaction.
"Is that what you told him?" said Raiden. "That your teammate died? You have such darkness inside you Epona."
This time, Epona did not respond. Perhaps the source of her anger and pain came from what happened to the fourth member of the team. In that case, Raiden was intentionally trying to rattle her. He knew that she was a formidable opponent to face, and he would do everything in his power to cause as much distraction as he possibly could. Maitho wanted to say something. He wanted to warn her. The only thought that prevented him from doing so was that whoever was in the hallway might not know he was in the apartment.
"I understand Epona," said Raiden, a note of sadness creeping into his voice. "After all, it would be better to tell Maitho your teammate died, instead of letting him know that it was me."
ns 15.158.61.48da2
