Personally? Ace blamed it on Ivy.
He was tired of fighting while at the same time being resigned to doing nothing but. Beats was a murderer two times over and he only felt ashamed because he was not ashamed. He never looked at his victims in the eyes. He shot ‘em in the back and caught ‘em by surprise. Collateral Damage would be the name of his mixtape. He’d have Ivy and Parker’s baby pictures on the cover.
The bullet wound he had taken from Myles still ached with pain but like anything with enough time he had gotten used to it. It was mind over matter, right? The pain made him angry and the anger made him scared. Fear wasn’t bad, right? Fear was fuel, that’s what he always said. Fear gave the gazelle the speed to outrun the cheetah. Fear gave the dog enough power to pull little Tommy out the well.
It was bullshit. He knew he wasn’t built like that.
Aliya wrote: "No shame in not being built for it. Some people just aren't.”
Had she even believed that? Did he?
Mammals were drawn to water like moths were to flame and humans were to each other. Beats barely counted as a human in his eyes but he was still very much a mammal. There was a certain freedom in relying on instinct. You didn’t have to think so much, you could just do. Didn’t Bruce Lee say that shit? Or was it Yoda?
“Well, there it is…big ol’ fuckin’ lake.”
Having Saku with him was as practical as it was dangerous. She could read a map and had a better sense of direction than Ace. She was slow because of her leg—but she didn’t complain much either. Teflon Jackson. Took on everything with a smirk and a smile. Even after all that had changed, that remained the same. He had visions of her crying and sobbing about the death of her boyfriend. They had exchanged more stories of their individual times on the island. There wasn’t much else to talk about aside from food and random nonsense like Beyoncé vs. Rihanna.
They had mostly stuck to the path as it was designed before cutting through some forest. They had come up on a weird part of the lake with no readily apparent structure next to it. Just a small bit of shoreline at the edge of some woods. It seemed isolated enough, Ace hoped it was. It wouldn’t be a good look to cuddle with the cripple and then leave her to get killed by an axe murderer.
He was well beyond trying to look good though.
“I dunno if I trust that water to be honest fam.”