It was the middle of winter; snow blanketed the huge park over which we watched. She was nowhere in sight. We'd been watching for hours upon hours, shivering in our long coats, wondering where she was, she of course had no idea we were waiting for her, we wouldn't be there if she knew. I found myself wondering if it was worth it, if we needed revenge on what could have been such a small insignificant thing; but it was too late now. I couldn't tap Marshall on the back and say ‘let's forget this whole thing,' calm his hunger for blood, assure him that even I didn't care anymore. I couldn't look him in those piercing green eyes, look past their cold depths, search his soul for basic human feelings. I couldn't stroke his hair, tell him everything would be okay as he did for me, I didn't have his strength of mind; I doubted everything the second I did it while he stuck with his actions until the end.

He turned to face me, his head tilted low as it always was, turning his soft face into a permanent frown, he always looked angry from that angle, the angle of his head, his angle on life.

‘What?' he sighed in his gravely growling voice.

‘Nothing.' I replied quietly, glancing at the buttons on his jacket, his face was too much for me, it was a mistake but there was nothing better to say.

‘No,' he took my chin in his thumb and forefinger, lifting my head to face him in his rough, gentle way. ‘What?'

I met his green eyes, just, they looked into my heart, they burnt my soul. His black brown hair fell just into those eyes. I shut my eyes, that green flame was too much. I couldn't answer it, I couldn't match its challenge. I heard him sigh, almost saw him frown at me, I felt his hand move away roughly and silently. I knew he was disappointed as I opened my eyes to see him turning back to his rifle. It was as bad as his anger, possibly worse, they both caused unimaginable pain.

‘Where is she?' muttered Oliver, he glanced at the fogged up face of his watch, shook his head, his black and blonde hair flicking him in his blue grey eyes.

‘Maybe she knows.' Frowned Noah, his sharp brown eyes darted around the park taking mental photographs of every tree, every bench and cementing it into his mind. He brushed his blonde hair from his eyes and turned to me. ‘You're sure it was tonight?' I nodded in reply. He shrugged and went back to his matt black rifle.

It was then that I realised that while they were all lying on the ground getting their cold stomachs drenched with snow I sat bolt upright, I wanted to curl up next to Marshal like he let me when it was so cold we couldn't feel our hands but it wasn't an option, I had my doubts on whether he'd talk to me anytime that night. I suddenly felt his hand on my jacket collar as he pulled me to the ground beside him roughly, my face hitting the cold hard snow like concrete.

I knew better than to speak, instead I gave him a look that I hoped would maybe scare him a little bit, maybe make him a little bit angry, tell him I wasn't happy. As his emerald eyes flicked over to me carelessly, I knew I'd made a mistake. I heard the crunching of police boots, they always sounded somehow different from normal shoes. I knew I'd been seen, I would be the one to bring this group crashing down from their throne of crime. We all held our breath the officer appeared over the crest of the hill. He was a fairly tall man with strong bulky shoulders. One gloved hand reached to the walkie-talkie at his belt while the other for his handgun.

Marshall put his hand inside his jacket, I could sense his smile as he whipped out his own gun and shot the man in the chest, roughly pulled me from the ground, the others were on their feet, looking down at the poor man, blood was soaking into the snow around his squirming body, he was still trying to get to his walkie-talkie, with a swift twitch of Marshall's finger on the trigger the walkie-talkie was obliterated.

They were all running, I paused for a second, just to think, that man has a family, maybe a wife, maybe even children. A family who would soon be receiving the news that their son, father, brother, husband had been shot. Then my brain kicked in, it was either him or us, I sprinted after the others.

I met them in the usual place, the dark underbelly of the old bridge, at the gate of the sewer. Marshall was already waiting, his frozen fingers playing with the icy grate of the sewer. Noah arrived next, soon followed by Oliver. They'd all started running at the same time but had split up as was the ritual.

We silently and swiftly followed Marshall along the sewer until we arrived at the graffiti marked grate and climbed up through the man-hole, first Marshall, then me, then Oliver and then Noah.

It wasn't until we got to the meeting room in the dusty old warehouse that anyone spoke.

‘I haven't done that in a while.' Marshall remarked, he was smiling, he never smiled. He looked over to me as if I was a grubby little kid following him around, I would've killed a thousand police officers for him to smile at me at that point.

I'd reached a point where I couldn't be in a room with him, he had this presence that could make or break everyone around him. It was choking me to the point that I was literally choking on my breath.

‘I'll go get food.' I muttered, as a softly shut the door behind me I was wishing he'd follow me but in true Marshall style he didn't. He knew what was going through my head, he knew it as we'd crouched in the snow earlier.

I was sitting next to the front door, I wasn't sure it was so smart to go get food, after all we'd just been seen, police officers would be crawling the streets soon, if not already. As I saw a hand push through the door to the back room I knew who I wanted it to be, but at the same time I knew exactly who it was. As Oliver walked in I shrunk towards the door, no idea where I thought that would get me, maybe I wanted to hide from him, he never brought good news.

‘He wants to talk to you,' he muttered, he somehow looked me right in the eyes through the dark shadowy room.

‘He didn't say that did he?' I muttered quietly as he sat down on the dusty floor beside me.

‘He does.' He looked at his hands and then back at me.

‘Well I'm not.'

‘What?' His voice was full of confusion, agreed it had made no sense.

‘I don't know, he's a bastard.'

‘And you love him.'

‘Shut up okay?'

‘Nope. Well if you're not gonna go see him are you at least gonna go get us some food?'

‘Well he just shot someone.'

‘He still needs to eat.'

‘No, it's the police I'm worried about.'

‘Okay then, I'll come with you.' He stood up and looked down at me. ‘Get up.' He pulled me to my feet and dragged me out the front door, the icy wind slapped us both in the face and he pulled me closer to him.

‘I don't think we should be doing this.' I muttered, slowly, hesitantly.

‘What?'

‘I mean, me and Lara, its our fight, I don't think we need to shoot her, I don't think you guys even need to be involved. It's between me and her.'

‘Oh,' he put his arm around me, ‘You have too much of a conscience for this darlin'.'

‘I know.'

‘And you're in love with a guy who lives to stop people's lives.'

‘He lives to survive.' I never did find out why I was so willing to defend such a monster.

‘Speaking of surviving. Where should we get food?'

‘Don't ask me. I don't feel like thinking.'

‘Well that just isn't good enough.' He smiled. ‘I say balanced meal.'

‘Hamburgers?'

‘And chips.' He shook his head.

‘Ok.'

We wandered into the usual fish & chips shop. They knew us, we knew their son but they didn't know what we did. They just knew we ate a lot of take out. They either thought we were really, really hungry teenagers or hat we were keeping a pack of wild animal fed from our regular orders of at least six hamburgers and a few large chips.

We used the chips as a thermos, Oliver held it under his long coat, his arm and half of his coat around me.

‘Hey does he know about me?' he asked.

‘What d'you mean?'

‘You know.'

‘Oh, um, no, well I haven't told him. Do the others know?'

‘God, no, they'd freak out. You didn't tell them did you?'

‘No. I thought you would though.'

‘Nope, just, um no.'

‘Are you going to? Like I mean ever?'

‘If I can avoid it, no.'

‘Okay.'

We were back at the warehouse, they didn't rush to the door like eager children, like hungry puppies, they were still in the meeting room and by the sounds of things they were talking about something very important, their voices were hushed and angry.

‘I'll go in first.' He whispered, squeezing me. I ducked into the shadows as he opened the doors, I heard their conversation quickly stop but not before I got the general direction of what they were saying. They were talking about me, whether it was a good idea to keep me with them. I heard Marshall ask where I was, I could picture him nodding, I heard his chair scrape across the floor and his deep sigh as he entered the dark room I was in.

I backed to the wall. I swear he's always had night vision, he walked straight over to me, the room was black bar the tiny puddle of light from the next room. He grabbed me roughly round the shoulders, steered me into the meeting room, grabbed one of the bags of chips and steered me into what was loosely called the lounge room.

The first thing he did was to shove me roughly into one of the beanbags on the floor. He threw himself into the one opposite, tore the chips open like a body and threw them to the floor. He was looking at me with those eyes, those eyes that had smiled as he shot a man of the law, those eyes that had glowed with anger when I didn't want to kill anybody.

‘Marshall-' I choked, my throat dry, the room swimming before my eyes as I fought for the control I rarely held around him.

Shaking his head roughly, he glanced at the door, waiting for the silent footsteps to stop before he spoke, his thick voice carving through the room.

‘It's finished.' He sighed simply, a smirk playing on his lips at my reaction, my eyes darting from wall to wall, my breathing shaky, the room spinning before me, the bile rising in my throat. He didn't move, stayed cemented before me, his eyes shining unrecognisably.

Keyword: Unnecessary

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