Chapter 10
The hours before midnight passed in a blur of preparation and quiet desperation.
They bought burner phones from three different stores, paying cash, wearing hats pulled low. SMG4 set up the streaming equipment—a small camera that could clip to his jacket, a wireless transmitter that would broadcast to every social media platform simultaneously. No delays. No chance for Hawthorne to shut it down before the truth got out.
SMG3 acquired other necessities. A knife with a six-inch blade, hidden in his boot. Pepper spray. A small handgun he'd bought off a guy who didn't ask questions and didn't give receipts. He'd never fired a gun before. He hoped he wouldn't have to start tonight.
They ate dinner at a diner on the edge of town—greasy burgers and cold fries that neither of them could taste. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting everything in a sickly yellow glow. Around them, ordinary people lived ordinary lives. A family with two kids arguing over the last french fry. An elderly couple sharing a slice of pie. A waitress refilling coffee cups with the mechanical efficiency of someone who'd done it ten thousand times.
None of them knew the world was about to change.
"I keep thinking about that date," SMG3 said quietly, pushing fries around his plate. "The one I promised you. Dinner and a movie and setting something on fire."
"We're having dinner now," SMG4 pointed out.
"This doesn't count. This is a last meal, not a date."
"Romantic."
"I'm a romantic guy." SMG3's smile was sad. "I would've taken you somewhere nice. Somewhere with actual tablecloths and wine that doesn't come in a box. I would've held your hand across the table and not cared who saw. I would've kissed you goodnight at your door and meant it when I said I'd call you tomorrow."
"You still can," SMG4 said. "After tonight. When this is over."
"You don't believe that any more than I do."
SMG4 wanted to argue. Wanted to insist they'd survive this, that they'd walk away and have all the time in the world for dates and kisses and tomorrows.
But he'd never been good at lying to SMG3.
"Then let's make this count," he said instead. "Right here, right now. This is our date. Shitty diner food and buzzing lights and the knowledge that we're about to do something incredibly stupid together. That's pretty romantic, if you think about it."
"You have a weird definition of romantic."
"I learned from the best."
They held hands across the table, fingers intertwined, and for a few minutes they were just two people in love, stealing a moment of peace before the storm.
At eleven-thirty, they paid the bill and left.
The pier was on the industrial side of the waterfront, where the city's gleaming downtown gave way to warehouses and shipping containers and the smell of salt and rust. The water was black under the moonless sky, lapping against the pylons with a sound like whispered warnings.
They arrived early. Scouted the location. Identified exits—not that there were many. The pier stretched out into the harbor like a finger pointing at nothing, surrounded on three sides by water. One way in. One way out.
A perfect kill box.
"He chose this place on purpose," SMG3 said, his voice low. "He wants us trapped."
"Then we give him what he wants," SMG4 said, adjusting the camera clipped to his jacket. "We walk into the trap. We get the confession. We stream it before he can stop us."
"And then?"
"And then we improvise."
SMG3 laughed, but it came out hollow. "I love how your plans always end with 'and then we improvise.'"
"It's worked so far."
"We're about to meet with a man who's killed at least a dozen people to cover up his crimes. I'm not sure 'worked so far' is the reassurance you think it is."
SMG4 checked his phone. 11:47 PM. Thirteen minutes.
"Three," he said quietly. "If this goes wrong—"
"It's going to go wrong."
"—I need you to know that I meant what I said. I don't regret any of this. Not the investigation, not the danger, not falling in love with you. If I could go back and change things, I wouldn't. Because every choice I made led me here. To you. And that's worth everything."
SMG3 turned to look at him, and in the dim light from the distant streetlamps, his eyes were bright with unshed tears.
"You're going to make me cry before we even start this thing," he said roughly. "And I need to look intimidating when Hawthorne shows up."
"You always look intimidating."
"Liar." But SMG3 pulled him close, pressing their foreheads together. "I love you. I know I said it before, but I need to say it again. I love you. And if we die tonight, I want that to be the last thing I say to you."
"We're not dying tonight," SMG4 said, with more conviction than he felt.
"But if we do—"
"Then I love you too. And I'll see you on the other side."
They kissed there at the edge of the pier, slow and deep and desperate, like they were trying to memorize the taste of each other. Like they were saying goodbye.
When they pulled apart, it was 11:55.
"Showtime," SMG3 said.
They walked to the end of the pier, their footsteps echoing on the weathered wood. SMG4 activated the camera, checking the feed on his phone. Live. Broadcasting to YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok—every platform he could think of. The viewer count was already climbing. A few dozen. A few hundred. People drawn by the cryptic title: "The Truth About Senator Carver's Murder."
By the time Hawthorne arrived, thousands would be watching.
At midnight exactly, headlights cut through the darkness.
A black SUV rolled onto the pier, moving slowly, deliberately. It stopped about fifty feet away, engine idling. The headlights stayed on, pinning SMG3 and SMG4 in their glare like insects under a microscope.
For a long moment, nothing happened.
Then the driver's door opened, and a man stepped out.
Director James Hawthorne was in his fifties, with silver hair and the kind of face that looked trustworthy on television. He wore an expensive suit and moved with the confidence of someone who'd never faced real consequences for anything in his life.
He was alone.
Or at least, he appeared to be alone.
"SMG4. SMG3." His voice carried across the pier, smooth and cultured. "Thank you for coming. I was beginning to think you'd lost your nerve."
"We're here," SMG4 called back. "Like you asked."
"Indeed you are." Hawthorne walked toward them, hands in his pockets, utterly relaxed. "I have to admit, I'm impressed. Most people in your position would have run. Would have tried to disappear. But you came to meet me. That takes courage. Or stupidity. I haven't decided which yet."
He stopped about ten feet away, close enough to talk comfortably, far enough to maintain distance.
"Where's the footage?" he asked. "The evidence you've been collecting. I assume you brought it."
"We gave it to Catherine Wells," SMG3 said. "She's going to make sure it reaches the right people."
Hawthorne smiled. It didn't reach his eyes.
"Catherine Wells," he repeated. "Yes, I heard about your meeting this morning. The cathedral. Very dramatic. Very cloak-and-dagger." He paused. "Did you really think I wouldn't know? That I wouldn't have people watching her?"
SMG4's stomach dropped.
"Wells has been working for me for six months," Hawthorne continued conversationally. "Ever since I forced her into retirement. She was quite bitter about it, you see. Felt she'd been treated unfairly. So I made her an offer: help me identify threats to national security, and I'd make sure she was rehabilitated. Her reputation restored. Her pension secured." He shrugged. "She took the deal. They always do."
"You're lying," SMG4 said, but his voice lacked conviction.
"Am I? Then why did she call me the moment you left the cathedral? Why did she hand over every piece of evidence you gave her?" Hawthorne pulled a hard drive from his pocket—the hard drive, the one they'd given to Wells. "This is excellent work, by the way. Very thorough. The financial records alone would have been damaging. The footage of Carver's death would have been catastrophic. Together?" He shook his head admiringly. "Together, they would have brought down my entire operation. Would have exposed decades of carefully constructed networks. Would have sent me and half the Cabinet to prison for the rest of our lives."
"Would have?" SMG3 asked quietly.
"Would have," Hawthorne confirmed. "Past tense. Because now I have the only copies. And once I've dealt with you two, there won't be anyone left who knows the truth. The investigation will conclude that Senator Carver died of natural causes. The stolen footage will be dismissed as a hoax. And life will go on."
"What about the others?" SMG4 demanded. "Tari, Mario, Meggy—they know what we found. They know about the conspiracy."
"They know fragments," Hawthorne said dismissively. "Pieces of a puzzle they can't put together without the evidence. And even if they could, who would believe them? A group of YouTubers making wild accusations against the NSA Director? Against the Vice President? They'd be laughed out of every newsroom in the country." He smiled. "No, the only real threats here are you two. And you've made this remarkably easy for me."
SMG4 felt the weight of the camera against his chest. The red light blinking. The viewer count climbing—he could see it on his phone, now in the thousands. Five thousand. Ten thousand. People watching this conversation in real-time.
Hawthorne didn't know.
He thought he'd won. Thought he'd eliminated every threat.
He had no idea he was confessing to murder on a live stream.
"Why did you kill Senator Carver?" SMG4 asked, keeping his voice steady. "What did he know?"
Hawthorne's expression hardened. "Carver was a problem. He was investigating defense contracts, asking questions about black site operations, threatening to expose programs that are vital to national security. He was going to hold hearings. Subpoena witnesses. Destroy years of careful work." He shook his head. "I couldn't allow that. So I eliminated the problem."
"You murdered him," SMG3 said flatly.
"I protected my country," Hawthorne corrected. "There's a difference. Carver was a traitor. He was going to expose classified operations, endanger active agents, compromise national security. I did what was necessary."
"And Boopkins?" SMG4 pressed. "Was killing him necessary too?"
"Boopkins was collateral damage. He saw something he shouldn't have seen. He was paid to keep quiet, but he was weak. Unreliable. It was only a matter of time before he talked." Hawthorne's voice was cold, clinical. "I don't enjoy killing, gentlemen. But I don't shy away from it either. Not when the stakes are this high."
"The stakes," SMG3 repeated. "You mean your career. Your power. Your ability to operate above the law."
"I mean the security of this nation," Hawthorne snapped. "I mean protecting American interests in a world that wants to destroy us. I mean making the hard choices that weak men like Carver couldn't stomach." He took a step closer. "You think you're heroes. You think you're exposing corruption, fighting for justice. But you're children playing with forces you don't understand. The world is not black and white. It's not good guys and bad guys. It's complicated and messy and sometimes the only way to protect the innocent is to do terrible things."
"That's bullshit," SMG4 said. "You're not protecting anyone. You're protecting yourself."
"Believe what you want," Hawthorne said. "It doesn't matter. In about thirty seconds, you'll both be dead, and this conversation will be over."
He raised his hand.
And SMG4 saw the red dots appear on SMG3's chest.
Sniper lasers.
Multiple positions.
"You're surrounded," Hawthorne said calmly. "I have six shooters positioned around this pier. The moment I give the signal, they'll fire. You'll be dead before you hit the ground." He lowered his hand slightly. "But I'm going to give you one chance. One opportunity to walk away from this. Tell me where you've hidden backup copies of the evidence. Tell me who else knows what you found. Give me that, and I'll make your deaths quick. Painless. You won't suffer."
"And if we don't?" SMG3 asked.
"Then I'll make it slow," Hawthorne said simply. "I'll make it hurt. And I'll make sure everyone you care about dies the same way. Your friends. Your crew. Everyone."
SMG4 looked at SMG3. At the red dots dancing across his chest. At the man he loved standing at the edge of death, defiant and unafraid.
And he made a choice.
"We don't have backup copies," he said clearly, loudly, making sure the camera picked up every word. "We gave you everything. You won. Congratulations, Director Hawthorne. You successfully covered up the murder of Senator Mitchell Carver. You successfully eliminated everyone who knew the truth. You successfully protected your illegal weapons deals, your black site operations, your offshore accounts. You're a real American hero."
Hawthorne's eyes narrowed. "You're stalling."
"I'm stating facts," SMG4 said. "For the record. So everyone knows exactly what kind of man you are."
"There is no record," Hawthorne said. "There's no one listening. There's no—"
He stopped.
His gaze dropped to SMG4's chest. To the small camera clipped to his jacket. To the blinking red light.
"You're streaming," he said slowly. "You're fucking streaming this."
"Fifteen thousand viewers and counting," SMG4 confirmed, glancing at his phone. "All watching you confess to murder. All hearing you threaten to kill us. All seeing exactly who Director James Hawthorne really is."
Hawthorne's face went white. Then red. Then a mottled purple that suggested his blood pressure had just spiked into stroke territory.
"Kill them," he snarled into a radio SMG4 hadn't noticed. "Kill them now!"
The world exploded into chaos.
SMG3 moved first, tackling SMG4 to the ground as the first shots rang out. Wood splintered around them, bullets punching through the pier with sharp cracks that echoed across the water.
They rolled, scrambling for cover behind a stack of old crates. More shots. More splintering wood. SMG4 could hear Hawthorne shouting orders, could hear footsteps pounding on the pier as reinforcements moved in.
"The stream," SMG3 gasped. "Is it still live?"
SMG4 checked his phone. The screen was cracked, but the feed was still broadcasting. Twenty thousand viewers. Thirty thousand. The numbers climbing exponentially as people shared the link, as the algorithm picked it up, as the world watched two YouTubers fight for their lives against a corrupt government official.
"It's live," he confirmed. "It's everywhere. He can't stop it now."
"Then we just have to survive long enough for it to matter," SMG3 said, pulling out the handgun. "You know how to shoot?"
"I've played Call of Duty."
"That's a no." SMG3 pressed the gun into his hands anyway. "Point at the bad guys. Pull the trigger. Try not to shoot me."
"Helpful."
More shots. Closer now. SMG4 could see figures moving through the darkness—Hawthorne's people, closing in from multiple directions. They were trapped. Pinned down. Exactly what Hawthorne had planned.
Except Hawthorne's plan had depended on secrecy. On silence. On being able to kill them quietly and make the bodies disappear.
Now the whole world was watching.
"We need to move," SMG3 said. "If we stay here, they'll flank us. We need to—"
A figure appeared around the edge of the crates. SMG3 fired without hesitation, and the figure went down with a scream.
"Jesus Christ," SMG4 breathed.
"Don't think about it," SMG3 said roughly. "Just move."
They ran, keeping low, using the scattered cargo containers and equipment as cover. Behind them, Hawthorne was still shouting orders, his voice high and panicked. The calm, controlled director was gone. In his place was a man watching his entire world collapse in real-time.
"The SUV," SMG4 gasped. "If we can get to the SUV—"
"It's fifty feet of open ground," SMG3 said. "We'll be cut down before we make it halfway."
"You have a better idea?"
"Working on it."
Another shooter appeared. SMG4 fired—wildly, desperately—and somehow hit the man in the shoulder. The shooter stumbled, and SMG3 finished him with two quick shots.
"Not bad for Call of Duty," SMG3 said.
"I'm going to throw up."
"Later. Move."
They made it another twenty feet before the snipers found them again. Red dots appeared on the ground around them, tracking their movement. SMG4 could hear the crack of high-powered rifles, could feel the displacement of air as bullets passed inches from his head.
They dove behind a shipping container, breathing hard.
"Forty thousand viewers," SMG4 said, checking his phone. "The stream's trending. Number one on Twitter. People are calling their representatives, demanding investigations. The FBI's official account just tweeted that they're looking into the allegations."
"Great," SMG3 said. "That'll be real comforting when we're dead."
"We're not dead yet."
"Give it five minutes."
SMG4 looked at him—really looked at him. At the blood on his jacket from where a bullet had grazed his arm. At the fear and fury and desperate determination in his eyes. At the man who'd been his rival, his enemy, his unexpected salvation.
The man he loved.
"Three," he said. "If we don't make it out of this—"
"We're making it out."
"But if we don't—"
"Then we go down fighting," SMG3 interrupted. "Together. Like we said." He grabbed SMG4's face, kissing him hard and fast. "I love you. And I'm not letting Hawthorne win. Not after everything."
"I love you too," SMG4 said. "And I have an idea."
"Does it involve improvising?"
"Heavily."
"Of course it does."
SMG4 pulled out his phone, switching from the stream to his contacts. He scrolled to Tari's number and hit call.
She answered on the first ring. "Four? Oh my god, we're watching the stream, everyone's watching, the whole internet is losing its mind—"
"Tari, I need you to do something," SMG4 interrupted. "I need you to call the police. The real police, not anyone connected to Hawthorne. Tell them there's an active shooter situation at the industrial pier. Tell them the NSA Director is trying to murder two civilians on a live stream. Tell them if they don't get here in the next five minutes, they're going to have a national incident on their hands."
"Already done," Tari said. "I called them ten minutes ago. They're on their way. ETA three minutes."
"Three minutes," SMG4 repeated. "We can last three minutes."
"You better," Tari said fiercely. "Because if you die on camera after everything we've been through, I'm going to kill you myself."
The call cut out.
"Three minutes," SMG4 told SMG3. "We just have to survive three more minutes."
"Piece of cake," SMG3 said. "I've had longer coffee breaks."
They moved again, working their way toward the SUV. The shooting had intensified—Hawthorne's people were getting desperate, firing wildly, trying to end this before the police arrived.
But they were also getting sloppy.
SMG3 took down another shooter. Then another. SMG4 provided covering fire, his shots going wide more often than not, but forcing Hawthorne's people to keep their heads down.
They were twenty feet from the SUV when Hawthorne himself appeared, stepping out from behind a cargo container with a gun in his hand.
"Enough!" he screamed. "Enough of this! You've ruined everything! Everything I built! Everything I worked for!"
He fired.
The bullet caught SMG3 in the side, spinning him around. He went down hard, gasping.
"Three!" SMG4 dropped beside him, hands pressing against the wound. Blood. So much blood. "No, no, no—"
"I'm okay," SMG3 gasped, but his face was white. "I'm okay, just—"
Hawthorne was walking toward them, gun raised. "You should have taken the deal," he said. "You should have just given me what I wanted and died quietly. But no. You had to be heroes. You had to expose everything. You had to ruin me."
"You ruined yourself," SMG4 said, looking up at him. "We just showed the world who you really are."
"And now the world is going to watch you die," Hawthorne said, aiming the gun at SMG4's head. "Live on camera. Poetic, really."
SMG4 closed his eyes.
This was it. The end. At least they'd done what they set out to do. At least the truth was out there. At least—
The shot never came.
Instead, there was a different sound. Sirens. Lots of them. And voices shouting through megaphones: "Drop your weapon! NSA Director Hawthorne, drop your weapon and put your hands on your head!"
SMG4 opened his eyes.
The pier was flooded with light—police cars, SWAT vans, news helicopters overhead. Dozens of officers with weapons drawn, all pointed at Hawthorne.
Hawthorne looked around, his face a mask of disbelief and rage. He still had the gun. He could still fire. He could still kill them both before the police took him down.
For a moment, SMG4 thought he would.
Then Hawthorne lowered the gun. Dropped it. Raised his hands.
"This isn't over," he said quietly, looking at SMG4. "You think you've won, but you haven't. There are others. People more powerful than me. They'll come for you. They'll finish what I started."
"Maybe," SMG4 said. "But they'll have to do it in front of the whole world. And that makes all the difference."
The police moved in, surrounding Hawthorne, forcing him to his knees. Someone was reading him his rights. Someone else was calling for medical assistance.
SMG4 turned back to SMG3, who was still bleeding but conscious.
"Hey," SMG3 said weakly. "We did it. We actually did it."
"We did," SMG4 agreed, pressing harder against the wound. "Now don't you dare die on me. Not after all this."
"Wasn't planning on it," SMG3 said. "Still owe you that date, remember?"
"Damn right you do."
Paramedics arrived, pushing SMG4 aside, working on SMG3 with efficient urgency. SMG4 watched, numb, as they stabilized him, loaded him onto a stretcher, carried him toward a waiting ambulance.
Someone was talking to him—a police officer, asking questions, taking his statement. SMG4 answered mechanically, his eyes never leaving the ambulance.
"Sir?" the officer said. "Sir, are you injured?"
SMG4 looked down. His hands were covered in blood. SMG3's blood. But he didn't think any of it was his own.
"I'm fine," he said. "I just need to—I need to go with him. I need to—"
"We'll get you to the hospital," the officer said gently. "Both of you. You're safe now."
Safe.
The word felt foreign. Impossible.
But as SMG4 climbed into the ambulance, as he took SMG3's hand and held on tight, as the doors closed and they pulled away from the pier—away from Hawthorne, away from the shooters, away from the nightmare—he thought maybe it was true.
Maybe they really were safe.
Maybe they'd actually survived.
The stream was still running. SMG4 could see it on his cracked phone screen—now over a hundred thousand viewers, watching the aftermath, watching the police arrest Hawthorne, watching the paramedics work.
Watching two YouTubers who'd stumbled into a conspiracy and somehow lived to tell about it.
"Four," SMG3 said quietly. "Turn it off. The stream. Turn it off."
"But—"
"We did what we needed to do. The truth is out there. Let the rest of it be private. Let this be just us."
SMG4 hesitated. Then he ended the stream.
The phone went dark.
And in the back of the ambulance, with sirens wailing and lights flashing and the city rushing past outside, SMG3 and SMG4 held hands and breathed and lived.
Three weeks later, SMG4 stood outside Three's Coffee N' Bombs, watching the neon sign flicker in the dusk.
The café had been closed since the night of the pier. Too much media attention. Too many reporters camped outside, trying to get interviews, trying to get the story behind the story.
But the reporters were gone now. The news cycle had moved on. Hawthorne was in federal custody, awaiting trial. The Vice President had resigned. Half the Cabinet was under investigation. The conspiracy was unraveling, thread by thread, exactly as they'd hoped.
And SMG3 was alive.
The bullet had missed anything vital—pure luck, the doctors said. A few inches to the left and he'd have bled out on that pier. But he hadn't. He'd survived. They both had.
The door to the café opened, and SMG3 stepped out.
He moved carefully, still healing, but he was smiling. That rare, genuine smile that SMG4 had learned to treasure.
"You're early," SMG3 said.
"I'm excited," SMG4 admitted. "It's our first real date. I'm allowed to be excited."
"It's just dinner and a movie."
"And setting something on fire?"
"I'm still recovering from being shot. The arson will have to wait."
"Disappointing."
SMG3 laughed, and the sound was warm and real and alive. "Come on. I made reservations at that place you like. The one with the tablecloths and the wine that doesn't come in a box."
"Fancy."
"I'm a fancy guy."
They walked together through the city streets, hand in hand, not hiding anymore. Not running. Not afraid.
Just two people in love, finally getting their date.
"You know," SMG4 said as they walked, "I've been thinking about what Hawthorne said. About there being others. People more powerful than him."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. And I think he's probably right. This conspiracy—it's bigger than one man. There are probably dozens of people involved. Hundreds, maybe. And they're not going to just give up because we exposed Hawthorne."
"So what are you saying?" SMG3 asked.
"I'm saying maybe we're not done. Maybe there's more to investigate. More truth to uncover. More fires to light."
SMG3 stopped walking, turning to look at him. "You want to keep doing this? After everything that happened? After we almost died?"
"I want to keep doing this because of everything that happened," SMG4 said. "We made a difference. We exposed corruption. We held powerful people accountable. And yeah, it was terrifying and dangerous and we almost died. But it mattered. It meant something."
"It did," SMG3 agreed quietly.
"So maybe we keep going. Maybe we become the people who investigate the things no one else will touch. Who expose the conspiracies everyone else is too afraid to look at. Who light fires in the darkness." SMG4 squeezed his hand. "Together. Like we said."
SMG3 was quiet for a long moment, considering. Then he smiled—that dangerous, beautiful smile that had started all of this.
"Okay," he said. "But we're doing it smart this time. No more walking into obvious traps. No more trusting people we shouldn't trust. No more getting shot."
"No more getting shot," SMG4 agreed. "That's a good rule."
"And we take breaks. Real breaks. Dates and movies and normal couple things. I'm not spending the rest of my life running from government assassins."
"Deal."
"And if it gets too dangerous—if it looks like we're going to die—we walk away. No heroics. No last stands. We just walk away and live to fight another day."
"I can work with that," SMG4 said.
They started walking again, toward the restaurant, toward their date, toward whatever came next.
Behind them, the neon sign of Three's Coffee N' Bombs flickered and burned, a small fire in the darkness of the city.
And ahead of them, the future stretched out—uncertain, dangerous, full of possibility.
But they'd face it together.
They'd face it as partners.
They'd face it as lovers.
And whatever fires they lit along the way, they'd light them side by side.
Because that's what they did.
That's who they were.
SMG3 and SMG4.
Rivals. Enemies. Partners. Lovers.
Igniters of truth.
Burners of corruption.
And survivors of the darkness.
Together.
Always together.
THE END.
ns216.73.216.141da2
and then Add to home screen.