A chance meeting

TW: Blood, murder, language, explicit depictions of violence.

None of the things we do are to get out to the public.

Daniel remembers well just how much that rule was stressed when takings the vows of the organization, how he was made witness of what would happened to him should he break or fail to ensure their existence remained a secret. It was a bit much, but it served its purpose nonetheless for him and everyone else bound by that place. 

The price for betraying this single principle was made known to them, shown in such a graphic display that it should have been enough to have anyone refrain from even thinking to try and bite the hand which feeds them, and yet…

“P-please! Just let me go, I won’t say a thing I swear!” 

Here they were, standing over one of their fellow hunters, watching the man with disdain or indifference as he laid there, bleeding out as he tried bargaining for his already forfeit life. 

Many would call him an idiot for trying to face such a terrible union of killers and corrupt men and women all in his own, but to Daniel, the man they were about to kill was not an idiot. Fact is, he was holding him in much higher regard than the rest of his colleagues. 

Unlike the others, he was dragged down to their level, kept on such a shorter leash because of his more violent tendencies and obvious apprehension towards their work. He might have turned out differently had they not been indebted to them, might have been something more than a monster made for the interest of his masters. Yet as he started down at the man who tried be set free from the same chains that choked him each time the thought of freedom crossed his min, that hope grew more into an impossible dream. 

“We know you won’t,” Daniel didn’t need to see Gabriel’s face when he said that, knowing full well that he was enjoying torturing the man far more than any of them combined, to quite a nearly sexual degree. There has never been a point in his life he’d been so disgusted and so compelled to murder anyone than when being near the same air that man breathe.

“Hey, newbie, why don’t you do the honors? Show us you ain’t a yellowbelly.” 

He stared back at the man challengingly, his burning hatred of the man hidden by his mask of calculated calmness and the dark fabric of the balaclava all of them had been ordered to wear. Daniel could still make out the delight shining thorough Gabriel’s mask, a vicious smile spreading widely across his at the thought of showing off what superiority he believed himself to hold. 

Without a single word uttered, he took the gun from one of the killers closest to him, moving between the careful looks from the group as he slowly leveled the weapon on the bleeding man’s head. To everyone else, not shooting the man instantly would have been seen as an instance of doubt, of hesitation, a possibility of betrayal, but Daniel’s hesitation was due to something else entirely, something strangely humane. 

He gazed down at the man with a pitying look in his eyes, a sliver of remorse for what he had to do made solely to his victim. No words were needed to be spoken for either one of them, yet as the click of the safety seemed to echo around them he stared deep into his eyes. The sudden light that suddenly washed away any fear from his glossy eyes took him aback, something about that look seemed to indicate that he saw something in him, that there was something about him which would give a dying man hope even as he stood at the end of a barrel. 

Whatever it had been the man saw would be taken to the grave as the tense silence was shattered by the roar of a gunshot. 

Slowly, all ears could hear was the sounds of cheers and whistles as blood began to pool on the sand beneath, a group of heartless killers cheering like drunken fanatics at a stadium watching their favored team score. Yet Daniel remained there, wondering just what it was that drew the man so much to him in his final moments, he wondered what he saw in his executioner to bring him peace.

Those thoughts were broken when panicked shouts began overtaking the initial celebrations. And before he even realized it, his hands had already rapidly placed the colorful mask he found comfort in over his face before turning to see what it was that made such confident people react like that. 

Everyone surrounded that which made them unnerved and worried like primitives around a fire, appalled and intrigued by it. And being driven by this sudden spark of curiosity, he gave into that same worry. 

At the center of everyone’s attention was a man, rugged and disheveled with a busted lip from which blood slowly trickled down from. Yet where everyone saw unwanted eyes that would have to deal with, Daniel immediately recognized him as Cooper, a reporter he had started noticing slowly following their trail of bodies. 

It fascinated him how someone that could merely try to make a quick buck decided had really wanted to make a difference, regardless of how impossible such a thing was, it was truly something to praise. Yet as a gun was starting to be leveled at the reporter’s head, an idea had crawled into Daniel’s mind, one which was slowly starting to grow louder with every instance he became disillusioned by the organization. 

“We need to go, now!” Daniel suddenly spoke, the attention dangerously placed on him now as tensions grew within everyone. 

“Not before killing this fuck we are not!” Gabriel hissed back, finger tentatively squeezing the trigger just enough as to not shot prematurely. 

Without thinking, Daniel didn’t hesitate in aiming his gun at the man he hated the most amongst them, ensuring that he made enough noise while cocking it to ensure everyone focused solely on him. “Don’t you think there are other out there too? If he isn’t alone, then chances are that someone might not be far behind.” 

As soon as those words came out of his mouth even the most veteran and twisted of hunters watched with growing anxiety the large dunes of Samalayuca, their fear of something not even Daniel was certain about getting the best of them. Good, keep watching like its us they are hunting now…

“Shit… shit!” Gabriel finally shouted, his panic only increasing that of the others in the group. “Get the fucking cars ready and take that fucker with us-"

“I will deal with him.”

“Fuck did you just say, yellowbelly?” 

Now it was the moment where his gamble would pay off or not, the stakes too high for it to backfire now when he had succeeded in making everyone stand on edge. “Listen, we can pretend this was a simple execution, I can stage it up while the rest of you leave. With any luck only one takes the blame.”

“Oh and so now you want to be a hero to us, is that it?”

“Fuck you, I don’t know what you problem with me is, but if taking the fall doesn’t make you realize that I’m on your side, I don’t know what fucking will.”

For a moment everyone else thought the two would have raised their guns at each other, a shootout suddenly breaking out by the continuous opposition the two of them forced the other to face. At any rate, it was more probable everyone would end up dying in the crossfire if nothing was done about it. 

“I will also stay behind,” the guy who Daniel had taken the gun from suddenly spoke up, slowly walking towards the two to make them focus on them, while also making sure to stand between the two as to prevent any sudden fight from breaking out. 

“I can do this alone-"

“Look, if you are going to stage this, you can’t do it alone.” They suddenly interjected, now fully standing before the masked man as they challenged his order. “Also, like hell I’m leaving you with my gun.” 

“Fine.” Daniel relented, moving towards the prone body of the reporter before stopping and turning to the rest. “Leave the area, then we will give the all clear when we are done.”

And just like that, Daniel and the other killer started dragging the man to the other side of the larger dunes of the place, with the former making sure that the sound of engines became ever so distant with the few steps they had taken. 

It wasn’t until everything was silent safe for the sound of Cooper's ragged breathing and the shifting sand beneath that he finally acted. 

Even at the distance they were, Daniel knew that a gunshot would be heard across the dunes, and if there were to be more than one ringing out across the desert, then the rest of the group would know something was wrong. So that meant having to resort to more physical means of dealing with the hand he had. 

At the sight of a dead log discarded to the side of the path they were taking, its death having so conveniently happened in the place where one life could be spared, part of him wondered if some outer force knew of the events that would happened in that moment and sought to ensure that they remained unaltered with a single tree sacrificed. The irony was not lost to that lurking monster in the depths of his mind as he slowly made his way towards it.

“Hey, by any chance, do you have a spare gun?”

The man didn’t look from where he was tying the hands of the reporter, too entranced with the knots on the rope to really notice anything else. “No, I don’t have one, why do you think I said that there was no way in hell I’m leaving you alone?”

“Good, I just wanted to make sure.”

“The fuck did you just say-"

The sentence was cut short as the sound of bone and dead wood crushing at the same time came. The blow had been strong enough to cause large splinters to fly in all directions, with the grand majority embedding themselves into the flesh of the unfortunate person that decided to follow Daniel. Yet despite the partially sunken skull and torn flesh, the man still writhed and screamed in agony.

The fall of the dead log against flesh and bone followed in the twisted rhythm of Daniel’s savagery and barbaric rage as screams and pleas became a gargled mess and chokes with each strike until there was nothing more other than the sound of flesh constantly being struck into a pulp. 

When he had finally been done brutalizing the body, Daniel turned to look at Cooper, his face stuck in a horrified expression of disgust and sheer terror. As if an animal surrounded by wolves, his eyes only revealed that acceptance of death in the same brutal fashion as the kill he’d been witness to. 

“Now, mister Cooper, it would be in your best interest to hear what I am about to say… because right now, we have made a big enemy today if this gets out.”

A predatory smile crept upon his face as he managed to attain what the man he had shot sought so feverishly. A means through he could bring down the organization that had disillusioned them so. 

All that was left now was ensure that the reporter’s escape can be believable, while also making sure that no one would suspect of his own little stunt.