Silver was asleep when he heard something. Something soft, impactful, unnatural. It felt like nothing familiar should feel, and Silver knew the feelings of his apartment. He knew the creak of the supports when someone opened a door. He knew the sound of the door to the stairwell, of the windows when they came free in their frames, even the steel sound of the elevator doors sliding open several apartments away. He knew the working of the pipes in the walls, of the sound of his refrigerator when it began to moan against the coolant in its cords, the hydraulic hiss of his faucet, and even the peaceful flutter of his Spathiphyllum. This sound wasn’t like that. It was a kind of... click.
Silver came awake all at once and rolled over automatically. The dark gloved hand slid past his right ear, and Silver caught the flash of a thin needle plunging down into the pillow. Heart hammering adrenaline through him, Silver dropped to the floor and came up again with the edge of the coverlet. He threw it sideways at the dark silhouette standing over his bed, trying to buy himself a little time. The figure dodged, leaving the needle where it was, an arm flailing to fight the material away. A thin plastic sheath from the end of the disposable needle flew sideways and pinged off the headboard. Click, was the sound the plastic made.
Tony was still trying to work his way out of sleep as the killer shoved off the coverlet and came around the edge of the bed faster than Silver could have believed. Silver didn’t have time to get clear of the bed even though it was his home ground and he should know it better than the intruder; obviously the man had been in here before and paced it out, and he was at least as fast as Silver was, and smart enough not to let the stairway door slam. Silver started to worry.
The man obviously knew better than to let Silver close the distance entirely. He flashed out a kick that Silver marked as muay thai, and he moved between the moonlight shadows. A nondescript man of Silver’s height and no identifying markings. He was so brown as to be gray, and his mouth sagged as if from boredom. Silver didn’t know him, and Silver knew a great number of people. Silver slid past the kick, but not easily, as he almost caught a fist in the temple for his trouble.
The two men separated again, watching each other. Silver didn’t have a gun within reach, and it was obvious the killer wanted silence, so no firearm made an immediate appearance. The struggle was muffled, mostly the blood pounding in Silver’s ear and the rasping sound of the killer’s breath in his lungs. A smoker, it sounded like. Too bad it doesn’t slow him down more, Silver thought, trying not to assess his chances of leaving this fight alive.
Again the killer tried to kick, but Silver was ready this time and he caught his heel and wrenched it sideways. The man cut free before Silver could do more than hit a nerve, and the man moved his weight off that knee and flashed forward with a series of movements that were both fist and open hand, karate and boxing. Silver barely felt the blow glance off his cheek but the one in the ribs and the follow-up into his stomach he couldn’t help but feel. Winded, Silver tried to back away around the edge of the room again, but the dresser got in the way, and the killer knocked him back into it with another of his dangerous side kicks. Silver ducked under it, gasping for breath, and kicked out at the other man’s knee. He caught him on the outside of the thigh--the killer was faster than Silver both on defense and offense.
Fighting off desperation, Silver tried to duck away again, and this time one of the kicks caught him high on the arm and knocked him into a wall with an impact that shook the closet door on its tracks. Silver recovered faster than the killer expected, shaking off disorientation and pain, and Silver caught him in a rough quarterback’s tackle. Both men slammed into the wall next to the door and grappled. Silver got the man in a hold around his neck but the killer performed a neat counter and slid away, taking payment in the form of a knee (fucking muay thai) into Silver’s ribs. He felt something crack, but ignored it.
Silver hit the man under the ear with a left hook and then trapped a wrist coming for his throat. Silver twisted inside the man’s guard, his right shoulder to the man’s face, and popped an elbow under the man’s chin while he twisted the wrist against the tendons like cooks tear husks off corn. The man yelled despite all his training. He hit Silver again on his left side, catching the rib, and it was Silver’s turn to grunt and fall sideways into the bathroom. The killer came in after him, crowding him, focusing on the wrist that still worked. He dodged Silver’s kick from the floor, stepped on his ankle, and hit him in the face with another knee. Silver fell sideways against the counter, bounced off the cupboard, and literally saw white stars explode in his vision.
The killer temporarily vanished from view. Silver either blinked or lost consciousness for a second, but when he came back he saw the man silhouetted in the door. He thought he heard it again. Click. Silver tasted blood in his mouth as he raised his head off the tile. The bathroom smelled like the cleaner he used almost compulsively, false lemon and bleach and blood. The cupboard sat on the floor. There was a smear of blood on it, and a crack down its middle. Silver reached for it. It suddenly seemed far away.
The killer was doing something with his needle, moving into the small square box. He set one knee on Silver’s chest. Silver’s hand groped in the splinters of the bathroom cupboard door. The tips of his fingers brushed cold metal cans of cleaner and soft paper rolls. The killer bent down and his weight pushed the air out of Silver’s lungs. Silver flung up a punch, but the killer easily knocked it away. His brown eyes were bland, anticipating a job finished. Silver’s groping fingers found a different kind of metal: lined, sanded. Deeply cold. His grip curled over a textured handle.
The gunshot took all the silence and ripped it up toward the apartment ceiling. The walls couldn’t contain it as it tore through the click, the needle, and then the killer, in one sudden and deadly streak of red and black.
Silver dropped his head back on the tile. It seemed that something or someone had managed to catch up to him.