Searching for After

Pretty Shitty First Date

A/N: Some graphic violence. Be warned.

"Go, I'll handle it!"

Shayne was all but shoved out of Damien's broken front door after the last man died. He'd just zipped his coat up to conceal the bulletproof vest and was now securing Damien's baseball cap over his head. With a tug of his hood, his face was as obscured as could be. He had no idea how Damien was going to handle this. The guy needed to explain this situation away to the police, and it was a pretty bad looking sight. He likely had self-defense and the Castle Doctrine on his side, but it was still a grisly scene. Three men were riddled with bullets while the fourth had a scalded face and multiple stab wounds. In any case, the less Shayne knew about how Damien was going to deal with it, the better.

Whether he liked it or not, this was where their paths had to diverge for now. Damien agreed to take Alice and head out of town for a week or two once he was cleared by the police. It was safer this way. Shayne didn't doubt the spread of the Blacksmith's influence, but the farther Damien was from New York City, the better.

Besides, Shayne was certain the Blacksmith would be dealt with in a matter of days. He wasn't going to allow the crime lord to continue jeopardizing lives like this.

Shayne kept his head low as he flagged down a passing taxicab just a few houses away from Damien's. He flung the door open and hopped in to scoot over to the seat behind the driver. Before the cab driver could so much as open his mouth, Shayne dropped several of Damien's bills onto the passenger seat and gave the address.

The advanced payment was enough to buy his silence for the time being. The driver glanced back at him through the rearview mirror every so often but said nothing. Shayne kept his hood up and the bill of his cap low to avoid eye contact.

It was going to be a long drive, that much Shayne was certain of. He shifted slightly once, twice, and again and again to ease into the seat. The battered pistol tucked into his pants didn't make for a comfortable ride. Shayne was conscious of his movements as well, so the bottle of painkillers in his coat pocket wouldn't rattle too much. His nervous fidgeting in the backseat must have been glaringly obvious, because after the first ten minutes, the cab driver spoke up. He was a young guy with red hair shaved close, like a recruit freshly arriving at Basic. He wore an Army green shirt, and Shayne noticed the glint of dog tags around his neck.

"You visiting your parents or someone upstate?" The driver asked.

Shayne was on the way to stop the assassination of Dr. Gregory Tepper, but this man didn't need to know that. The Blacksmith was apparently trying to clean up loose ends. The things Tepper knew put him in danger, so Shayne had to act fast. If he was going to die, he at least hoped the doctor would kick it after Shayne got the information he needed. His knowledge of the John Doe could serve to tie all these disjointed pieces together – Reyes, the Blacksmith, the gangs, all of them.

"Hm," Shayne grunted, "Something like that."

The young driver's persistent gaze was beginning to unnerve Shayne. The last thing he needed was his cover being blown after barely twenty-four hours of having it. Before Shayne could snarl at the man, he spoke up first.

"I think it's real brave what you did, Staff Sergeant Topp."

Fuck.

Shayne leaned forward to place a hand on the driver's seat as he growled, "Hey, you never saw me – got it?" His eyes darted to the dashcam, finding it was already switched off to begin with. They snapped back to the driver.

"Never saw you, sir." The cab driver's eyes focused on the road, avoiding Shayne's threatening leer.

"What's your name?" Shayne asked.