"Fuck," hands clenched into fists, tendons extended. He wanted to break his hands through the wall. Pummel himself bloody. How could he be so fucked up? Do such monstrous things to his fucking friends and justify it like that? He deserved to be shot. Worse. He was a fucking idiot. A monster. Fucking psychotic.
Marcus could feel his heart pounding. Shortness of breath. He thought he might pass out. He wasn't used to panic. Panic reactions weren't him, but he was feeling it. But the dog wasn't important, and that thought was calming. The dog didn't matter. It was irrelevant. What mattered was that it had worked. Marcus angrily wiped tears off his face with a palm of his hand before sitting down again, staring at his hands. "It was fucked up. I knew it was fucked up, but I got him. Might've changed my whole fucking life around him. Shit, I did. Stopped fucking around, anyway. We... He's..."
How the fuck was he supposed to even try to explain what Bryant was? The way the older man could so thoroughly spin him. Well, there were Max's words. Another snort, something in his tone that was bordering on hysteria. "He's a fucking unicorn."
Was. Now Bryant was a pile of cold meat. Maybe a brick of ash and chunks of bone by now, waiting to be picked up by some long-lost next-of-kin. Not Marcus, it wouldn't be Marcus, because who the fuck was Marcus to Bryant O'Neill? He'd fucked up so immensely that he wouldn't even get to be there to bury Bryant.
"I had him," he reiterated, mostly to himself. Reassurance against the swelling tide of desperation and despair. Maybe he hadn't, not really, but maybe he had. Anger resurfaced, bubbling up just enough to be seen. To remind him of its presence. Tempered by doubt, guilt, shame, and Archer's calm... but still there. "'Til those motherfuckers blew him up. I don't know who it was... York, maybe, but I don't know... I don't know anymore. Doesn't matter, does it? I fucked up. Now I don't got shit."