*looks about sheepishly* Yeah, another update.

*******************************************************************************

Mark could not believe what he had just seen. Anne had, she had just, and then, and Knives… his mind replayed the scene over and over again and he wished that he could convince himself that it was only a dream. A nightmare. A fantasy, something that could not be real, could not be possible. But he could see the blood where Anne had lain, and if his eyes could focus on the far wall he could see the remains of the dog, and in his ears Ace's laughter still echoed. He blinked hard twice, willing the scene away but it stubbornly stayed, the still tableau unchanging.

Then Ace gave a little groan and shook herself, rolling her shoulders and raising her arms. She arched her back as she stretched, then sighed a bit as she eased the tension. Reality seeped in with each motion, each little movement anchoring the past to the future.

"Well, that was unexpected," she commented idly, not addressing the humans at all, but instead looking at something that only she could see.

It was so unreal. Mark shook his mind out of the rut of replaying the past but he still felt like he was dreaming. The air felt heavy and thick with something he could not put a name to. Vaguely, he was aware of what he was doing, but it was nothing he could stop.

Slowly his right hand lifted to fumble at the snaps on his holster, easing the restriction, allowing him to draw the gun as his eyes tried to focus on the person before him. Time didn't slow, precisely, as he drew the weapon up and aimed it at her head, but it moved oddly, pausing at random places then jumping ahead until he was certain that he had actually moved, but all that remained in his memory was a jumble of still images in no real progression.

And then he was looking at Ace down the barrel of his gun, her face obscured by the sight, and things felt better.

Then she laughed.

"Do you think that is going to stop me? I took down your little hero with my pet; do you think a slug of metal is going to have a chance of hurting me?" She rested her hands on her hips and thrust her pelvis forward, throwing her shoulders back and raising her chin in a manner that was obviously intended to be enticing.

Mark thought it was rather sick, a shoddy playacting. He began to apply pressure to the trigger, slowly inching past one pound, then creeping up on two. At four he would fire, and at least his part in this farce would be over.

"Do you think that I'm not at least going to try?" he asked as the thought occurred to him, then felt his mouth curve in what he hoped was a smile. "It's worth a shot, at least."

Ace laughed again, a high pitched tittering that would have gotten on his nerves if he stopped to think about it. She abandoned her come-hither pose to fling her arms out. "Look, I'm innocent," she laughed. "I'm not doing anything at all. Unarmed! Unthreatening! Just a little girl," she added, biting her thumb and looking at him coyly. "Why, I didn't even touch your little paragon of virtue." She looked over her shoulder at the smear on the wall. "Bad doggie, no biscuit." She intoned gravely, her voice lifting into childlike registers. She looked back at Mark. "He's very sorry." Then her voice dropped back to its normal range and she shrugged, her hands dropping to rest on the waist of her pants. "But I'm not."

"I don't care," Mark said. His finger continued to squeeze, passing three pounds of pressure and creeping up on four. Then the final pressure point was reached and the gun kicked in his hand. He wasn't braced for the kick, so he didn't see where the shot went.

Inside the room the noise echoed from wall to wall, sound layering on sound and assaulting the ears. When the noise and smoke cleared enough for thought and sight to work again, he looked to see what effect his shot had on Ace.

Nothing. Less than nothing. She was holding something gingerly between the finger and thumb of her left hand, blowing on it as she rolled it slightly.

"Thank you for the present," she said politely, giving him a radiant smile, showing both a dimple and even, white teeth. Then her smile morphed into a moue of disappointment. "But, I have nothing to give you in return. I guess I'll just have to give this back." She dropped it into the palm of her right hand and blew on it dramatically, one breath, a pause, a larger huff, a mock disgruntled look, and then a small puff of air.

The bullet rose in the air a couple inches, then slowly advanced towards him. It gained speed until about half the distance between them had been covered. Ace obviously tired of the game she was playing and sent the bullet directly through his left shoulder.

The joint felt like it was on fire, and then like someone shoved a hot iron in the space that his joint used to occupy, and then poured pure starfire in the new hole. His arm actually dropped a half inch as the joint was destroyed.

He struggled to breathe, struggled to stay on his feet, struggled to make his eyes focus again. The haze that had been beginning to lift was back, fogging everything he did, everything he thought, everything around him.

But he found himself lifting his revolver once again, and that was no struggle at all.