Why was it, even when he would swear he had accounted for everything, something went wrong? It had not been an ideal plan, but it was the best he had. And he had worked it into perfection. But how could he honestly believe that perfection could be obtained within less than five minutes? He had seen the numbers. Like he always saw the numbers. But this was the second time something had come about, happened so suddenly that he could not alter it, and there was no way to alter it, even if he had the time. Certainty was a scary thing. It meant, no matter what anyone did, it was going to happen. Nothing, not man, not machine, not god himself could stop it from coming true.

She was bleeding. Bleeding out so quickly that the ambulance would not have a chance to get to her before she died. And this had been his plan. His clever little way of escaping, free of charge. All it had cost was one life. And now two. It felt as though his insides were ripping themselves apart. He stared, wild eyed, at the blood leaking down her side. A part of him wanted to rush up to her, apologize for what he had done. The rest of him just wanted to flee. He had been released by the SWAT man, there was no one looking at him. The mob would be retreating as fast as it could, before the cops showed up. It would not take him much effort to evade the incoming reinforcements who would soon be canvasing the area.

But if he left her alone, she would die. There was already a chance that she wasn't going to make it, and he could see the numbers falling as her chances at life got slimmer and slimmer. He had not wanted to take one life to be able to escape. And now he was going to take two. Had he thought he was god, that he could get away so cleanly? Had he honestly believed nothing could ever touch him? He had lived his life by pure luck, and had abused his abilities shamelessly, for his own entertainment. Was this some sort of punishment, for believing everything could always go his way?

But even that was the vanity talking. Believing that he was important enough to impact some sort of divine retribution was as childish as believing that nothing could ever go wrong. The numbers were the only certainty he lived by, and when it came to the numbers, he was a god. His eyes went hard, but it wasn't the agent he was looking at. He was looking at the numbers. They controlled this world, they registered everything, laid it out to him in a way that could be interpreted. And he could change them. He could change the world. He could change the outcome. He had done it before, so many times that it had become as natural as breathing. Perhaps there was something wrong in believing he had the right to tamper with the world. But he did not believe in destiny. He made his own fate.

Ethan's mind grasped onto the numbers, coiled among them like some grotesque worm. And then he began to squeeze. He had always relegated his ability into two categories. There was probability. The chance that something was going to happen. The chance that the roulette ball was going to slide into a certain spot, or that a person was going to hear a noise, or even bother to turn and look. He had always seen life as a combination of probabilities, and that was the thing with which he played.

And then there was luck. Something so impossible that even chance might never have seen it coming. Something so improbable that it didn't even deserve to be considered. He had only ever played around with luck carefully, skirting it like a man skirting a snake, enraptured by its beauty but knowing that a single wrong move could cause it to turn upon him. Now, now he did not care. He was one with the numbers, oblivious to everything going around him. Someone ran into him and he staggered sideways, but caught his balance by reflex. He didn't even note the disturbance.

This was far beyond anything he had ever attempted before. The numbers had never resisted his prompting before, but this time they fought. At first it was easy enough, hardly any different from his normal manipulations. And then things began to flicker. One minute her chance at survival would draw close to eighty percent, the next it would flicker to five. He would force it back up, and it would jump wildly all over the place. But he had never cared as much about anything as he did about this now. Eventually what he was doing lost all meaning. It was no longer about saving the detective, about finding a way around his own guilt. All that existed was his will. His will and the numbers.

When Ethan began to register the world around him again, his head hurt so bad that it was a miracle he wasn't screaming. There was something wet sliding down his face, from his nose, eyes, and mouth. He wiped quickly, but when he withdrew his hand he saw it covered not with phlegm, saliva, and tears, but with blood. He grabbed the corner of his sleeve and mopped up his face, before turning around and staggering away from the cops.

He had to focus. He had to get away. Now, before someone remembered him, or grabbed on to him. If they caught him now, he wouldn't be able to get out of it. But his head hurt so bad.

The numbers didn't fight him this time, but he wasn't pushing for an impossibility. He twisted them the way he always did, keeping people from looking over, keeping the cops from turning down a particular alley in their hurry to get to the scene, keeping the passersby from noticing the blood that covered his red jacket. There was always a chance they would look over, would notice something was amiss despite the odds. That was probability. Nothing was ever certain.

Right now, there was only one thing Ethan knew for sure. That agent would run on her own two feet, unaided by man or machine. She would run with the wind flowing through her hair, her long legs stretching out underneath her. That was his atonement, that was his gift. She would not fade, would not give up, until such a thing came true.

Of that he was certain.