He freezes when he hears the click. Just for a moment, so still that he doesn't breathe, that for the third time in his life, he's absolutely certain that his heart stops. He knows the sound instantly, knows that it means a reprieve. But the fact that the man did it. The fact that he pulled the trigger.

He had been dead inside but he's twice as dead now. Closed off to empathy. Closed off to mercy. This is a place he hasn't been to in a long time, dark and foul as the room he's in, but it's served him well in the past and he knows it'll serve him well now.

It's just a pity he doesn't have the time or the means to really make use of it.

He's moving again, silent, around the man and up behind him, still hardly daring to breathe. He doesn't remember holstering his gun or unsheathing his knife but it's out, a pleasant weight in his hands, a faint gleam in the darkness. The man is fumbling with his gun, cursing under his breath, and he knows he's out of time.

They all are.

It's easy, and the only part he regrets is how quick it is. Fingers sliding into the man's hair, gripping, yanking his head back, and a single sharp thrust of the knife up under his jaw and a sharp twist. A slit throat still leaves too much time to react. Up into the brain, quick, so unfortunately painless.

Instantly his hands are drenched and warm, and he holds the man close against him as the man twitches violently, twice, flickers and vanishes, his gun clattering to the ground.

And the thing he remembers later is that in that moment, before he returns to himself, he's almost sorry that it's over.