You go in and you finish the job. You don’t take them to the hospital afterwards.

He remembered Bryant’s gesture as the two cars ground against each other - the cocked thumb ripping across the throat. The grin. His mouth tightened and he picked up the Remington again.

You don’t take them to the hospital, Chris.

You finish the job.

He stepped back and raised the weapon. Bryant saw it and flailed desperately about on the concrete. A broken moaning came out of his mouth. It looked as if he was trying to bring his working arm up to his shoulder holster and the Nemex, but he didn’t have the strength. Chris clamped his mouth tighter, took another step back and levelled the shotgun. Jagged motion, quick, before he could give it thought. He’d stopped breathing.

Finish the fucking job, Chris.

He squeezed the trigger.

Nothing.

No click, no detonation, no kick. No spray of blood and tissue. The trigger gave soggily through half the pull and stuck. Chris pulled harder. Still nothing. He worked the action and jacked a perfectly good unfired shell out into the air. It hit the concrete and rolled away, cheerful cherry red.

Mike’s face, pleading up at him.

Squeezed again. Nothing.

‘Fuck.’ It gritted out of him, as if he was afraid to be overheard in the empty warehouse. It still seemed to echo off the walls. ‘Fuck, fuck!’

The padlocks - hammering at the padlocks until they snapped and came loose. He remembered the savagery he’d brought to the action, the haphazard angles he’d been forced to use in the cage at the bottom of the stairs.

He’d jammed the mechanism, jolted something, maybe broken something inside, irretrievably.

He stood looking at Mike Bryant. Wiped his mouth and swallowed.

Finish it. Fucking finish it.

He stalked closer, staring fascinated into the other man’s eyes. Bryant gaped up at him, twitching. He made noises that sounded like the name Chris, the word please.

For some reason, it was enough.

‘Fuck you, Mike,’ he said quickly. ‘You had your chance.’

He turned the injured man’s head with one foot, reversed the Remington and jammed the butt of the weapon into Bryant’s exposed throat. Leaned his full weight on the gun.

‘Fuck you, Mike!’ Now he was spitting it, bent over and glaring into Bryant’s face. ‘Fuck you! Fuck you, all of you suited fuckers!’

It seemed to take forever.

At first Bryant only made choking sounds. Then, from somewhere, he found strength to get his undamaged arm up and grab the Remington around the trigger guard.

Chris kicked the hand away and stood on it. He was panting.

Mike’s choking sounds grew frantic. He twisted his head against the concrete. He curled his trapped fingers around the edges of Chris’s shoe, nails clawing at the Argentine leather.

Chris leaned harder. Tears sprang out in his eyes and streamed down his face. He lifted his foot and stamped down hard on Mike’s hand. He heard the dry snap as one of the fingers broke. He leaned harder. His whole weight lifting on the braced shotgun, taking his body almost off the floor.

Something crunched. Mike stopped moving.

Afterwards, Chris could barely get himself upright. It was as if the shotgun had suddenly become indispensable, as if he’d been afflicted with a sudden muscular disease. He limped back from the corpse, trembling so violently his teeth chattered. He made less than a dozen steps. He bent suddenly double and, finally, threw up. A thin helping of vomit and bile - he’d barely eaten that morning, but what he had came up. He dropped to his knees in a puddle, retching.

The sound of boots through the wet.

He looked up, only vaguely interested, and saw the men. Big, blocky forms in the filtering light from outside, like knights in armour from some mediaeval fantasy.

He blinked to clear his eyes.

There were nine of them, dressed in the cordoned zone gangwit ensemble. Cheap, grimed clothes, loose canvas trousers, bulky padded jackets, shaven heads and workboots. Hands held crowbars, wrenches, sawn-off pool cues and a variety of other items too jagged to identify. Faces were scarred with streetfight souvenirs. Eyes watchful on the scene they’d just interrupted.

He got unsteadily to his feet. One of the men stepped forward. He was near two metres tall, heavily muscled under a sleeveless T-shirt scrawled red with the legend  I am the Minister for the Redistribution of Health. The lettering was splattered to make it look bloody. His face was scarred from the corner of the left eye and down the cheek. It gave him an oddly mournful look.

‘Finished, have you? Is he dead?’

Chris blinked and coughed.

‘Who are you?’ he asked harshly.

‘Who are we?’ Laughter rasped out, first from one throat, then building to a rattling echo off the metal roof. It died out as abruptly. The gangwit spokesman was swinging a short black-enamelled prybar softly and repeatedly into his left palm. His gaze seemed welded to Chris, playing up and down the clothes, the hair, the shotgun. He smiled and the scar tissue tugged at his face. ‘Who are we? We’re the fucking dispossessed, mate. That’s who we are.’

There was no laughter to follow this time. The men had tautened, waiting for the leash to slip. Chris suppressed another cough and lifted the Remington as convincingly as he could manage.

‘That’s close enough. The police are on their way, and there’s nothing to see here.’

‘Yeah?’ The spokesman for the group gestured at the BMW and Mike Bryant’s corpse. ‘From what we’ve seen so far, I beg to differ. This is prime time. Mr Faulkner.’

Chris pumped the action on the Remington.

‘Alright, I said that’s close enough.’

Mistake.

The unspent shell leapt in the air, hit the concrete and rolled towards the other man. For a moment, they both looked down at it. Then the gangwit looked back up at Chris and shook his head.

‘See, that’s a perfectly good round, mate. And to judge by your manner of execution back there a moment ago, I’d say—‘

Chris flung the shotgun in his face and ran.

Back to the upturned BMW and Mike Bryant’s corpse. He heard booted feet behind him, more than one pair. The gangwit’s voice rang exasperated above the clatter.

‘Well don’t fucking stand there. Get him!’

He dived and landed on Mike in a kind of embrace. Scrabbled under the jacket, felt the butt of the Nemex in his hand. Proximity sense told him the first of his pursuers was almost on him. Shadows blocked out the light. The smell of old leather and cheap aftershave swamped him. A hand grabbed at his jacket.

He rolled free and came up with Mike’s gun almost touching the gangwit’s chest. He saw the man’s eyes widen. A pool cue smashed down on his shoulder. He squeezed the trigger.

The Nemex thundered. The shot kicked the man off his feet and back across the concrete. He crumpled and lay still.

‘Toby!’ It was a howl of anguish. The gangwit spokesman. ‘Fucking zek-tiv piece of shit!’

The second gangwit was two paces behind his fallen comrade, but the gun brought him to a dead halt. The others were converging, but now they stopped and began to back away, left and right. Chris got himself upright, grinning fiercely.

‘That’s right, back the fuck off.’

Something black whipped through the air and hit him a numbing blow across the elbow. The Nemex went off, firing wide into the concrete floor. Chris clutched at his arm and tried to bring the gun to bear as the spokesman, leaping in after the hurled prybar, hit him from the right. Below the elbow, his muscles were water. He snapped off a panic shot. It went wide. The gangwit snarled a grin and grabbed the arm, twisting. Chris felt his hand spasm open. The Nemex spun away, splashing into a puddle. He threw a punch left-handed and saw his opponent ride it with a streetfighter’s impatient grunt. Desperate, he reached and grappled. The Minister for the Redistribution of Health punched him in the chest with shattering force. He collapsed backwards, fending weakly, tripping on Mike’s corpse. The gangwit let him go, let him fall against the body of the upturned BMW and turned to scoop up his prybar. Stalked forward, still grinning. Chris saw the attack coming and rolled weakly left, along the BMW’s flank. The crowbar arced down and clawed a long dint in the twilight-blue bodywork where he’d been. The metal screeched. Chris came off the car yelling, delivered a hooking left-handed punch to the Minister’s temple. The gangwit threw up a block that didn’t quite cover and staggered slightly with the impact. He grunted again, shook his head and whipped the crowbar round. Chris caught it across the side of the head.