Re: [quicklog: micah c, neil d, cris m, louis d]
[Cris didn't want to leave Sam at the penthouse, not with a nurse, not with a surgeon, not with someone he'd known his whole life, not with anyone. He wanted to stay with her, since every time he left worse things happened, and then he'd find himself picking up the pieces—and it wasn't that he was weary or exhausted the way he knew Sam feared he would be. It wasn't that. But, he didn't want to go this time, not when she was not even all there—she'd wake up at Neil's, confused and hazy from the sedatives, and she'd be with a stranger, and that just didn't sit good with a guy like Cris. He knew they had to stop Micah—of course they did—, but, if he was being honest, he cared more about Sam being okay, than taking Micah down, in spite of understanding the long-term payoff here.
Rationally, he got it. Rationally, he got lots of things. But Cris wasn't a rational kinda guy. He was the kinda guy who went by his gut. His gut told him Micah was gonna die here, and that kinda blood—cold—wasn't what ran through his veins. He'd killed, but only in defense, only when someone had been coming at him or his partner first—he didn't think that was how this was gonna go down. He didn't know about Neil, but he knew Louis—locusts, right?—it wasn't gonna be pretty. Now, Cris didn't need pretty, but he was no good at sitting on his hands when things ran counter to his beliefs, and the potential there he didn't like.
Here it was, Ash Wednesday, and he was walking just behind Sam's ex, blood already metallic on the back of his tongue. Neil didn't talk and Cris didn't talk. He walked—and the hallway gave way to pitched tents rising and falling in stripes on thick canvas, throat to the belly of the beast. The sun shined a dull, soapy gray on carnival grounds and he shielded his eyes from its rays, aware immediately of the time-torn juxtaposition of himself and Neil against the '60s backdrop of the place. He picked up his pace, trailing in garroted dust, waft of popcorn butter, spun-silk of cotton candy sweet.