Although it was almost time to get off shift, Rorschach and Ginny were still handling a street case.
Compared to the earlier gun and drug violence, though, what they faced now could not have been smaller.
In an old apartment building, a boy of about ten stood on a chair, a rope hanging from the ceiling fan looped around his neck.
"Don't try to stop me…"
The boy sobbed, threatening to kick the chair away every time Ginny tried to get closer.
Rorschach leaned against the doorway with a cigarette in his mouth. Beside him, the boy's mother hurriedly explained, "I got off work a little late tonight and forgot to buy the cake he's been wanting. He cried and threw a fit, so I smacked him. Then he started bawling that he was going to kill himself."
"Over a piece of cake?"
Rorschach shook his head, half amused, half speechless. The boy, overhearing them, shouted angrily, "It's not just the cake! You won't let me go out and play, you won't let me out at night, you keep me locked up at home all the time. What's the point of living like this?!"
At the word "locked up," Rorschach turned and stared flatly at the mother. She sighed helplessly and said, "Kids have been going missing around here for months. The South Side is a mess to begin with, so I don't have a choice. I swapped shifts just so I can walk him to and from school every day."
Rorschach frowned. Clearly, Gus's operation was already affecting every family in the South Side.
He nodded, then called to the boy still standing on the chair, immune to Ginny's coaxing. "You want to know what the meaning of life is?"
He beckoned. "Come down first. I'll tell you once you're down."
"Y‑you sure?" The boy was half‑skeptical.
"You ever seen a cop lie?" Rorschach shot back.
"…Fine."
The boy slipped the noose off his neck, jumped down from the chair, and trotted over to him on short legs, looking up in anticipation.
Rorschach calmly ground out his cigarette, then swung and slapped him across the face.
Smack!
The boy froze, stunned, staring at him. "You lied!"
"That's right. Life is about being lied to—and feeling pain."
Rorschach backhanded him again, then raised his hand a third time. "And most importantly, it's about listening to your mom."
Seeing that hand coming again, the boy burst into tears and threw himself into his mother's arms, never mentioning hanging himself again.
Rorschach let his hand drop and growled, putting on a fierce face to scare him. "Kid, if I catch you pulling that suicide stunt again, you'll find out how I deal with you. Now apologize to your mom."
"I'm sorry, Mom!"
The apology came out without hesitation. He hid behind her and did not dare look at Rorschach again.
In his eyes, this lying, face‑slapping cop was much scarier than hanging himself.
Once they wrapped up the last case before clock‑out, Rorschach stretched and went back to the car.
Beside him, Ginny could not help laughing as she thought of what he had just said. "So the meaning of life is listening to your mom? You really believe that, Rorschach?"
"What else?"
He answered as if it were obvious. "What mother would ever harm her own kid?"
"Well, no, but doesn't that just murder the kid's autonomy and independence?" Ginny clearly did not agree.
"True independence is inner strength and clarity of self‑knowledge. That's from Jane Eyre. Try reading something once in a while."
With that, Rorschach dropped the subject, started the engine, and headed back to the precinct to clock out.
As for Ginny, she stared at his profile like she was seeing her partner for the first time.
This foul‑mouthed brute had actually read Jane Eyre?!
————————————
The squad car threaded through the streets of the South Side.
After a few days working together, Ginny was clearly much more relaxed.
She chatted away about her school days' gossip while pulling out a bag of dried fruit, popping some into her own mouth and peeling pieces for Rorschach, placing them by his hand.
On any other day, Rorschach would have told her to shut up within minutes. But he had just chewed out her dad that morning; he figured he could afford to be a bit more gracious.
Half an hour later, the cruiser rolled up to an intersection.
Listening with half an ear to Ginny's endless chatter, Rorschach caught the tail end of the green light and stepped on the gas to shoot through.
The instant they reached the middle of the intersection, a wave of nameless dread clamped tight around his heart.
It was the razor‑honed sixth sense he had forged through countless parachute drops—an animal instinct for danger.
Sure enough, a second later, a box truck blew straight through the red light from the cross street like a runaway horse.
Already braced, Rorschach stomped the gas. The tires shrieked on the asphalt as the car surged forward, barely slipping past the truck.
Even so, the truck's front end still clipped the back of the squad car, the massive impact sending the cruiser spinning out of control. It pirouetted through the intersection a dozen times before slamming into a roadside wall, crumpling the front end like paper.
Several masked men jumped out of the truck, pistols in hand, and crept toward the wreck.
Bang! Bang bang bang bang—
Before they could fire, a burst of shots erupted from inside the squad car.
Rounds ripped through the shattered windows and into the night air, finding their marks and punching into the gunmen.
Rorschach did not have time to check how Ginny was. He kicked his door open and, half‑reclining across the seat, used it as cover as he opened fire first.
But even with bullets hitting them, the gunmen only staggered; they did not go down. They raised their weapons and returned fire.
"F*ck. Body armor?"
Rorschach curled his lip. He had no idea where these clowns had come from—terrible shots, but playing dress‑up like professionals.
He slammed in a fresh mag, scanned the positions of the four attackers, then leaned out and dumped every round in the shortest possible time.
The ferocity of the return fire forced the killers to break their charge. They scrambled for whatever cover they could find or flattened themselves on the pavement instead of pressing the advantage of their vests.
Rorschach seized the moment to duck back into the car. Stretching his arm down under the seat, he groped for what he had stashed there.
A few seconds later, when the silence from the cruiser dragged on, the gunmen exchanged looks. Then they spread out and moved in for the kill.
Boom!
Another shot rang out—and the nearest gunman went flying several meters back.
Rorschach stepped out, one hand wrapped around a Remington shotgun. He pumped it once, then used the car body as cover to snap off two more blasts, sending the killers who had gotten close to the car sprawling.
He rolled over the trunk in one smooth motion. As he landed, dodging a returning shot, another boom sounded, and the last attacker's head exploded into chunks.
Just like he had told the chief—he had serious security issues, especially when it came to insufficient firepower.
So no matter what, there were always two big‑bore shotguns in the squad car.
"Can't even get off shift in peace…"
Rorschach grumbled, moving from body to body and putting a round through each skull that was not already clearly done.
He was just deciding which one to leave alive for questioning when everything went sideways.
"Don't move!"
Another gunman, who had been hiding nearby, had somehow slipped up to the front of the wrecked cruiser. He pressed his pistol to Ginny's head and shouted at Rorschach.
"Rorschach…" Wedged awkwardly against the seat, Ginny turned dazed eyes toward him, filled with fear.
She tried to reach for her own gun, but with the muzzle jammed against her temple, she could not risk any big movements.
"Rorschach Butcher! Compliments of the Salamanca family!"
The killer's voice was tight with nerves as he yelled, "Drop the gun, or I blow this girl's brains out first!"
Rorschach glanced at Ginny, saw she was still in one piece, and instead of dropping his weapon, he actually raised it and stepped forward.
"Buddy, you been watching too many movies? If I don't drop the gun, you kill one hostage tops, then I put a bullet in your skull. If I do drop it, we both die."