The numbers gave him only a split second’s warning, and it was nowhere near enough time for him to dodge the blow that was now landing solidly across the side of his face. Ethan felt his head snap sharply to the side, and a bright flame of sharp pain crossed across his cheek. Every thought left his head, and for a moment the numbers were alone, drifting before his mind’s eye.

Her words drew him back into focus with all the subtlety of a bucket of cold water. They cracked against him like a whip, and he felt his temper growing with every word. Who on earth did she think she was, looking down on him from her high horse? Oh, she thought she had life all figured out. The perfect, noble, self sacrificing Brigit Walsh knew exactly what was right and what was wrong, and understood all of the consequences. She had everything all figured out, and anyone who didn’t agree with her, who hesitated even for a moment at going along with her perfect plan, why he was nothing but a kid, too pathetic to understand her grand, wonderful design.

Her complete ignorance left Ethan so furious that he couldn’t even begin to form words. She was the one who had come to find him, had asked for his help, and then she dared to turn it all around on him, act like it was all his fault. He couldn’t believe her naivety, couldn’t even begin to comprehend how she could fail so completely to understand what she was asking from him. He had answered her question, had told her where the kid was to the best of his ability, and all she wanted was to take more and more from him. 

In the end, she was just like everyone else. All she wanted to do was use him, turn him and his ability into another tool for her FBI arsenal. He should never have told her, not even in part, about what he could do. He had broken his one, cardinal rule, and look where it had landed him. Another situation outside of his control, another person who made presumptions, and then used those presumptions to decide what he was supposed to do, and god forbid that he dare try and reject doing exactly what she expected of him. No, that simply could not stand. Not against Bree and her god damned righteous anger.

Even Victor’s name, and the knowledge of what exactly it meant, was not enough to blot out the wave of fire that roared through his veins and left his heart pounding. He heard it, and then he forgot it, her words unintelligible in the face of his fury. She wanted to go storming away from him? Fine. So be it. Let her stew in her fury, let it consume her until it fucking bled her dry. Ethan had no obligation to her. 

All of the tension and fury in his body released suddenly, and he turned towards the ocean, letting out a bellow of pure, primal rage. On the beach the kids stopped playing, turning to look at him with wide, frightened eyes. He didn’t see them, didn’t see the people who were suddenly doing everything in their power to avoid getting any closer to him than was absolutely necessary. How dare she make so many presumptions?

Ethan left the pier, parting through the crowds like a ship in the water, his face carved into the mask of a demon. The numbers riled before his eyes, unable to hold still long enough even for him to comprehend them. They changed with the same churning tide that seemed to be bound within his own body, causing his heart to beat so loud that it seemed to be the only thing he could hear. He grabbed the numbers viciously in his mind and twisted at random, uncaring as all the lights on a storefront suddenly went out in one bright burst, and a man walking on the pier suddenly tripped over his own feet, skidding painfully and sending a shower of relish over a nearby woman from the hotdog he had been carrying. It lessened some of the tension in his heart, calmed him down enough that he was able to slow his pace and start watching where he was going a little bit. 

That night, when he made his way over to the largest of Atlantic City’s casinos, he ripped the place out for as much as it was worth with an icy, furious passion. By the point he hit $150 million, and it became clear that he had no intention of stopping at any point, the casino could no longer ignore him. Having absolutely no way to prove that he was cheating, having watched him bounce his way from poker to roulette to blackjacks to the slot machines to craps, they could also no longer afford to leave him be. Already he was breaking the point that they would be able to pay out in a single night. His funds were taken from him, even the 10,000 with which he had entered the casino, and he let it go the same way he had won it, without even so much as a blink. The bouncers who had been put in place to watch him felt shivers crawl up their spines.