Rays flicker through the smoke from the lightening as it crackles outside. Again and again light illuminates the smoke-filled room as their eyes continue to lock in an unexpected stalemate. Her with both hands on her gun pointed firmly at his forehead. And him, with one hand on a shard of glass wrapped in a part of his shirt sleeve and the other firmly gripping a grenade with his index finger ready to yank the pin. He knows that the grenade will make her second guess popping him in the head. Even if she could get a clean shot, it would only take a fraction of a second for him to take her with him. Should she lose focus for a even a second, the glass will make her pay for it. His classic \u201csword and shield\u201d strategy has never failed him. She tries to hide her surprise with an even colder stare and a tighter grip aimed at his temple. She contemplates taking a chance against his reaction time and giving him one to the head. Either that or shoot his hand off and run for it. She decides to stick with her plan and keep him talking until she can figure something out and pray that he makes a mistake. With the smoke still heavy around them, every flash of light highlighting the intensity in their eyes. Eagerly waiting for the other to be distracted only for a second, just long enough to make their move. They circle each other, only a meter apart, him trying to get closer and her the opposite. Both being careful not to move too fast and trigger a reaction. \u201cWhere is our son?\u201d he asks coldly. \u201cSafe for the time being\u201d she responds, knowing that her knowledge is the only thing keeping him from rushing in and forcing her hand, \u201cthey are using him as leverage against me and if you take me out, they\u2019ll have no more use for him.\u201d His forehead wrinkles in frustration as he can tell it\u2019s not a bluff, \u201cLet\u2019s say that I believe you, why tell me now, other than to save your own life?\u201d Without hesitation, \u201cTo save his.\u201d His face shows nothing but complete focus on her. A drop of sweat trickles down into his eye, he doesn\u2019t blink, ignoring the salty sting, \u201cYou think we\u2019re gonna work together to save him?\u201d \u201cIf you love him as much as I do, you\u2019ll do whatever it takes.\u201d He grits his teeth as he realizes his situation. He couldn\u2019t take a chance on calling her bluff, single-handedly dooming their son. He eases his grip on the glass and slowly backs away, still ready to flick it into her throat should he second-guess himself or her words. Her trigger finger eases only slightly knowing what he would do if he felt anything was out of place. \u201cWhats the plan?\u201d he asks as he sulks backwards into a shadowy safe spot where she can\u2019t tell \u201cexactly\u201d where he is. \u201cI was supposed to deliver you for him\u201d she smirked, \u201cand we can both see how well that\u2019s going.\u201d He lets a slight smile sneak out but doesn\u2019t let it show in his voice, \u201cTrue, but the only people who know what happened here are you and me.\u201d She keeps her gun aimed squarely at where she guesses he is, \u201cClearly you\u2019ve already got a plan and I want to hear it.\u201d He throws a rock against a barrel around his old position to watch her squirm. She instinctively aims in the rock\u2019s direction and fires. Before the empty casing even hit the ground she realized her mistake and prepared for his wrath. But before she could even frown, he was behind her. With a quick twist of her wrist, she was disarmed and restrained. She felt a wet cloth slide past her hand and then slap over her nose and mouth. She tried to hold her breath but he gave her a quick blow to the gut, causing her to suck in a deep chloroformy breath. A devilish smile creeps across his face as he whispers in her ear, \u201cWe\u2019ll talk when you wake up.\u201d Her vision gets blurry as she loses consciousness, \u201cIf you wake up…\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rays flicker through the smoke from the lightening as it crackles outside. Again and again light illuminates the smoke-filled room as their eyes continue to lock in an unexpected stalemate. Her with both hands on her gun pointed firmly at his forehead. And him, with one hand on a shard of glass wrapped in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[338,333,340],"tags":[528],"class_list":["post-2789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-of-benji","category-ocbenji-special","category-stories","tag-temple-to-the-barrel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocbenji.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocbenji.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocbenji.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocbenji.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocbenji.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2789"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocbenji.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3274,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocbenji.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2789\/revisions\/3274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocbenji.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocbenji.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocbenji.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}