Waiting for the tide

Lost. Lost. That was all he could think. Lost. He had lost. Not just a case, some criminals and their smuggled drugs. That would be something he could cope with. With anger, grim and determination to do it better next time. But it wasn´t that simple this time. Not by a long shot.

Lost. He had lost. Not just the case. More than that. Way more than that.

His feet stumbled across the soft underground of the tideland, his feet sinking in again and again, making it hard to walk fast. But walking fast was behind him. Long behind him. The beach was wet and the wind that was blowing from the still absent sea was casting cold and hard needles around his head. He barely felt it. His wounded leg was aching but he didn´t feel much of that either. Not anymore.

Soon he wouldn´t be able to go on any further. But that was all right. He didn´t really intent to go on that much further. Why he was still walking at all was a mystery even to him. Regarding his condition, physically as well as mentally, he should have broken down long ago. His leg was a mess and so was the biggest part of his shoulder. His shirt was soaked in blood – not only his own – and his gun was lying in the damp soil somewhere behind him. Empty anyway. He had shot his last bullets hours ago. The fact that he had taken down two of the bastards should give him at least some satisfaction. But it didn´t. There was nothing left in him for satisfaction. Not after what had happened.

Lost. Goddammit, how could all of this happen in such a short time? This day had started as a good day. The usual way. The way it was supposte to be. But look how it had ended. So quickly. Too quickly to respond properly. To do anything. Nothing of this was ever supposte to happen. But it had happened anyway. Lost. Lost. Lost forever. And he was left behind to know about it.

They were still behind him, he knew that. They´d managed it to put them off their scent for a while but these bastards had not given up. He had known that the drug maffia could be hard but these guys had raised it to a new level. He should have known it. Goddammit, he should have known better than to just run into their nest.

It had been like poking into the literal hornets´ nest. The damn cottage where they´d stored their drugs – too far away from every town or other kind of civilisation to smell sober by the way – had been guarded so much better than the damn drugs had been worth. Way better than any of them would have guessed. Damn, he should have known better. He should have called for some backup. Maybe if he had, there would have been a chance for them. But maybes were not important anymore. Things had happened the way they had happened and there was nothing on earth that could make it undone.

Lost. He´d never thought he could repeat a word like that so often without feeling the attached anger that belonged to the sound of it. He´d never thought he could ever feel so empty and done while there were still criminals out there that needed to get caught. But he did. Because there was nothing left in him to feel anything. Nothing but this hollowness. This dull exhaustion, that had driven him this far probably by pure instinct and that was about to give way to total renouncement. His legs were already shaking heavily.

Lost. He had lost. He had lost them all. Each one of them. He hadn´t been able to save them. None of them. And now only he was left. The last one of their little team, still chased by these bastards that had already killed his friends. Soon they would find him. He could already hear them. Or was that just the sound of the waves in the distance? Was the tide already coming? He didn´t know. He didn´t know anything anymore. Only that he had lost. Lost.

Gus had been first. When the shooting had started he´d been the most unlucky one of them. Or maybe it had been his luck that he´d died first? That way he hadn´t been forced to see the others die too. He´d had the mercy of a quick death. The bullet had probably killed him before he even knew what had hit him. His blood had speckled Lassiter´s shirt when he´d fallen next to him. And as painful as it was to think that way, it had been better that way. At least for him. It had spared him the cruelty of what had followed.

They´d been able to fight back and run. But these pigs had chased after them as if it was hunting season. And the way they´d chased them, they soon had felt like animals that were fighting for their lives. They hadn´t given them the slightest chance. Of course back then that had not been the way it had felt for them. Back then they´d truly believed that there was still a chance. That they could make it.

But now, looking back on the events of the passed few hours, Lassiter thought that in the moment Guster had died, all their fates had been sealed. If he hadn´t died first, maybe Spencer would have been more on his guard instead of being struck by the shock. Maybe he would have seen it coming. But he hadn´t and when they´d reached that cliff, where they´d thought they could hide, those bastards had found them.

They all had been hit by a bullet or two, but Spencer had gotten the worst part of it. Lassiter was sure, if she had wanted it, he could have saved at least O´Hara. He had tried. He had yelled at her to move, that there was a chance if they would take the risk down that slope. They might brake some bones but they could make it out alive.

Shawn had been halfway dead by then, Lassiter had known that in his heart. The psychic had still been shooting at their attackers but he´d been kneeling on the ground in a way that was unmistakable. And then the gun in his hand had become too heavy for him to hold it.

That was the moment when Lassiter had just known it. Juliet must have known it too. Of course she´d known. And Lassiter was still sure that she could have made it – if she would have wanted it. But she hadn´t. Instead of bolting for the slope with him, she´d bolted for Shawn, who was if not completely dead then at least slipping away. She´d kept shooting against this superior force, holding the limp psychic in her arms as if she could still save him with that. The bullets that had hit her didn´t seem to matter to her.

That had been the last time Lassiter had seen his partner. If he hadn´t turned around one last time to see if she was behind him, he´d never known what had happened to her. If he´d had a chance, he would have turned around and ran back to her. But his foot had lost its grip on the ground and then he´d been falling. Rolling, sliding, jumping all the way down the slope until he finally lay still at the foot of it.

He believed that he´d lost consciousness for a while but he couldn´t be sure. If so he had also lost his orientation and a part of his memory, because he couldn´t remember waking up and start walking again. Or better limping. He´d broken his leg on his way down the slope. And probably some more, but that didn´t matter anymore. Nothing really mattered anymore.

He knew they wouldn´t let go of him. That they wouldn´t stop until they´d killed him too. No witnesses. But that was all right. Because he really didn´t plan to go on for much longer anymore. Why he was still walking at all was a mystery even to him. Where would he go? And why? He had lost. He´d failed them. All of them. And now it was his turn.

He could feel that it was close. And that was good. He didn´t have the strength anymore. Neither in his body nor in his heart. He had lost. He hadn´t been able to fight this last battle. Hadn´t been able to save them. He´d seen them die, one after the other and now he was at the end of his strength. No, he wouldn´t go on any further. He didn´t want to.

He let himself drop down to his knees, burying his knees into the cold and wet sand. His leg was aching like hell but he ignored it. Didn´t he deserve all the pain, hell could come up with? He´d failed to save them and now he was here. On some random spot along the shores of California, in the middle of the night, a bunch of deadly criminals behind him and the eternal blackness before him. He´d never felt so lonely and lost his entire life.

Finally, finally after all these hours the tears started to fall. He dug his hands into the cold sand and cried. Cried for all the things that had been lost today. His friends. His partner. Everything they all had been standing for, for the world as well as for each other. They were dead. He hadn´t been able to save them. He´d lost them. And for all he knew he wouldn´t be able to save himself either.

But that was all right. If it was meant that way he would accept it. He had nowhere to go anyway. Not anymore. Not with them being dead. Because without them there was just nothing left to fight for. He had lost. Lost.

Eventually after he had cried all the tears that had been inside of him, he sat up again and looked out over the sea. His head was hot from all the crying and empty because with the tears everything else that had been inside of him was gone too. Somewhere ahead there was the ocean, still waiting for its time to come back to the land.

Lassiter sat there and waited. Behind him there were the cliffs, all of them overgrown with shells and seaweed. He would just sit here and wait. Wait for the tide to come. Or the criminals. Whatever would reach him first. It didn´t matter to him anyway. Not anymore. Not after he´d lost everything that had ever mattered in his life.

Lassiter was waiting for the tide.