Chapter Text
When Marcus was six years old, his father called him ambitious.
Marcus remembered it clearly; more so than any other childhood memory. "The lad's going places," his father had claimed to a coworker, clapping him in the back. "I’ll see him as sheriff someday, just wait. He's a better man than me." Sometimes, when Marcus closed his eyes before sleep, the look of pride his father gave him that day burned behind his eyelids.
So when it came time for him to choose his future, he chose enforcement. When his father started coughing, he paid the bills. When Grayson needed a left-hand man, he worked overtime for six months to prove himself. When the cost for his father’s treatment ended in too many zeros, he turned to under the counter deals. He took every job, every lead, pushed himself further, watched as his father whittled away. On the same day Marcus was promoted, his father was given four weeks to live.
And when Marcus saw the explosion on that rainy night, he did not hesitate. His father would see him as sheriff, and with Grayson dead, an arrest like this would ensure his promotion. He could not let this opportunity go by.
He ran to the blue cloud, slipping on cobblestone and praying all the way. He clutched chloroform cloth in a messy fist, a plan forming as he skidded through the Undercity. He did not see the Zaunite in the alley or the knife in her hand. He did not watch her slip from the shadows, tracking the shine of his blue uniform. He did not feel her step behind him.He did, though, feel the blade across his throat and the blood on his hands.
His father would not see him as sheriff.