Disclaimer: See previous chapter.

Rating: PG. I trust kids have already heard the phrase "God damn it." (mother mary, father of Christ, etc. etc.)

Manxome Schizophrenia

Hours later, he finally composed himself enough to untie me.  I could still hear him chuckling behind me.  As his nimble fingers undid the impossible knots, I felt his hands brush every now and then.  Images and thoughts rushed through my head, unbidden, unwanted, unstoppable.  I dug my fingernails into the flesh of my palms, thinking this would somehow help.  I rationalized to myself: he must be at least twice as old as I am.  He is a member of the law enforcement community, and we all know what bloodthirsty killers they are!

Bloodthirsty, yes, but also cute, cuddly, and graceful!

Innocent people have been shot by the gun that is inches away from you!

Well, yeah, but a man's got to do something to make a living.

The murderous fiend probably enjoys it!
            I doubt that – nobody actually *likes* their job!  By working in this profession, he is more likely to dislike killing than someone not in law enforcement. Think about it logically.

If you want to use logic, honey, you're going to be flattened.  His age. His available selection.  And have you checked for a wedding band, Ms. Common Sense?

And when would you propose that I do that? When he was pointing the gun at my temple or when I was wallowing in a pool of my own blood and vomit?

Shut up, shut UP! A third voice piped in. Will you two stop bickering long enough to get us out of here alive? God damn it! It's like kindergarten in here with you two whiners!

Slowly, painfully, and laboriously we came up with a plan.

It was only to stall for time; I still didn't know how much Walker meant to me.  If the choice to betray him or give my own life up arose, I didn't know what I would do.  I broke the silence.  "I will tell you what you need to know about Walker." He didn't even start at my pronouncement.  "But I've been tied to this chair all morning. I really need to get some coffee, and maybe we can have a walk around the park after."

Mmm…a walk in the park with a sharply-dressed agent…mmm…SMACK! from Number Two, SLAP! from Number One.  Number Three tied them both to the brain stem.

So I found myselves meandering through the partitioned flowerbeds, chatting unconcernedly with the agent.  Inside my head, though, was a battlefield.  Bullets of reason shot this way, spears of logic were lobbed that way, and all the time more and more soldiers kept popping up out of nowhere to join in the fray.  There must have been two or three thousand me's at one point.  I never knew anyone could be this schizophrenic!

In the end, the victors stood upon the bodies of the slain, and rang out their declaration through the caverns of my mind: "We will not give up our honor and betray those nearest us!  We will never back down, though Hell itself comes to claim us!"