“I did it because I had to.” His eyes were dark, solemn. His calm expression belied the stain of arterial spray across his face, the gore dripping from his hands.
“Eddie,” she said. Her voice wavered, but her gun didn’t.
He kept his hands in the air, his back to the wall. “You know what they did to me. I had no choice. It was the only way.”
She took a deep breath to steady herself before the memories hit, because they always did, at just the wrong moment. Eddie’s voice, so small and soft as he wept in the darkness in the bed across from hers, the sound of fists on flesh coming from the shadows across the hall -- she did know what they’d done to him, and heaven help her if she wasn’t fiercely glad he’d done it.
“You can’t stay here,” she said finally. “Find the Merchant - he’ll get you out safely.”
“They won’t just let me walk out of here alive.”
She gestured with the gun. “Then distract them.”
He studied her expression.
She sighed. “Don’t hit anything vital.”
“All right.” And he lunged. They grappled, exchanged blow for blow in smooth martial precision, and then he pinned her down, shot her through the shoulder. He was out the window and down the fire escape in two seconds. Three seconds later, back-up arrived. Simons knelt beside her and put pressure on the wound, screaming into his cell phone for a bus.
The paramedics arrived quickly enough, but Eddie was a good shot and even though her shoulder hurt something fierce she knew she would be fine. As the paramedics wheeled her away on the stretched, Simons hovered anxiously.
“Did the suspect say anything?”
“No. I had him cornered and we fought and he got my gun and --”
Simons smoothed a hand over her hair. “Hey, hey, it’s not your fault. See you at the hospital.”
She nodded and closed her eyes. She’d see Eddie again. In the meantime, he was safe.
(336 words)
1 comment:
Ohhh very nice! To help a friend or to catch a suspect. That would be a big decision.
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