23
"What is this piece of scrap that you roll in here?" One of Joshua's thick, brushy eyebrows perked severely, his commanding voice demanding its respect over the utility vehicle's hard purring. Yet that voice was smothered to a death as his large, black hands shoved that disgusting food into his large mouth, in all its greasy tastiness straight from that pair of large, golden arches.
"It..." he mumbled through the melting saturation, "-uh---kind of looks like a... -um---car accident, about to transpire!"
The speakers let out a little yelp, like a puppy dog, as Robin eased her mule onto the brake, the green lines on the readout fluctuating briefly, painfully. She pinched the key, and her wrist twisted into itself swiftly before the car could get another word in.
"What was that?" The dark giant asked.
"The... --radio!" she stuffed the key into pocket, flattened against her breast. "Talk radio, to be a bit more precise. You know how they shout."
"Of course." He nodded. "But where is your Peugeot?"
"Back at my apartment, with some company." She explained, and the door clunked as it popped ajar. "It was a miracle that they would even let me drive this here."
"So..." Joshua scuffed his meal by the teeth again, "where did you find this piece of junk anyway?"
"I met some people last night." She hopped off the thin bar beneath the door, heels making a -clop- on the smooth cement. "And their vehicle was running on its last wheels. I told them you were good with cars, Josh, so I convinced them to take it to you."
"I do not fix vehicles for free, Robin." The man of her color folded his thick arms, undulating with muscle, as soon as his mouth overcame the last of that fried poison.
"I know that, Joshua." The top of her head just reached a little beyond the tip of his sensitive plexus. "But please, they are in a tough spot--between Iraq and a hard place, as you would say--"
"I believe it is said, 'a -rock- and a hard place." The dark giant noted.
"However it may be said, I do not care." She frowned. "They have hit a hard patch with their luck, and I do not think they can pay your fees."
"Then how am I supposed to get paid, Robin?" he smirked. "Just by looking at this thing, it looks like it will take at least 600 shekels! And if they truly cannot pay for it, then I think I know someone who can..."
She sighed, and did with her arms as did Joshua. "By the word 'someone', I believe you mean me."
"Come on, Robin." His dark, thick lips pulled smoothly over his slick rows of enamel. "This man knows you have the money, if you truly wish to have this heap repaired. From someone residing in the David's Village complex, it should be a mere pocket change."
"My Shia may be generous with my allowance, Josh," she said, "but it can only buy so much. And my payment at the bar is not so charitable either. But I have an idea."
"This man cannot wait to hear this." He sighed.
"Bottles of Zanzibar's finest liqueur, priced at 200 shekels each." She said. "I know you have a fondness for it too."
"Do I...." He rubbed at his chin.
"This is what I propose:" she said. "A bottle of your liqueur for every 200 shekels on the final bill. You get what you want, and I get what I would want for my friends."
"Oh... sounds tempting." He grinned like that cat from the Louis Carol book. "And how do you suppose you'll sneak that stuff away from the boss?"
"I will think of something." She said. "Do we have a deal?"
"Of course." He shrugged. "If my little sister is such a zealot for her guests. Just do not get caught, okay?"
"Fair enough, big brother." Her fingers wormed into the pocket on her chest, entangling the key into a grip. The sun shinned off of it during its gentle arc through the calmed air. "Do not go crazy with it. I do need a way home, at the end of my day, after all."
"What about your guests?" he asked.
"They're from out of town..." she said naturally, "out of country, to be precise."
"From where...?" the giant kinked his brow again.
"America." She shrugged.
"Hmm..." he shook his head benignly. "Does your Shia know?"
"He is on duty, probably for all week." She sighed dejectedly. "The Major's orders."
"Ah yes..." his sigh felt like a brief gust of the desert breeze, hot and brief, "our dear Major. What would we ever do without him? Probably, we will all be a little better off without him, if you ask me."
"I am beginning to think the support is weakening." The flat ball of her mule grinded gently into the pavement, the sound of scratches clawing their way out from under her foot. "It was great that we had someone who wasn't bound by the world's dangerous conventions, who did whatever he wanted and thumbed his nose at everyone who differed. But now, after yesterday... I think that the public finally saw him for what he is."
"A monster...."
"Yes," she nodded solemnly, "I have tried to tell Shia that for months, ever since I saw his employer's eyes stare back at me. Hazel orbs, so beautiful like the sparkling sea yet there is just emptiness in the deep. He looked... dead."
"And I have told you, Sister, as I have confronted Shia:" She looked up, her heart torn against herself as she caught Joshua's disparaging gaze. "If he loves you so much, then he must leave that militia for good!"
"I know..." She nodded--
--And she felt a great and powerful force surge throughout her body, from the tip of her head where the bands held her frizzy tail tight to her angled soles. Her lips moved, but as the words flowed from within, she wasn't sure if it came from her or from someone else.
"If my Shia does not listen to us," her chest tingled with strange excitement, "then I feel that the good Lord will provide him someone that he will listen to...."
Her brother shared in her pregnant silence, thick in the humid air outside Zanzibar.
"Yes..." he nodded, "perhaps you are right. But for your sake, I hope that he will snap out of it before his 'job' kills him."
"Me too." She dismissed. "But I have to go inside now--'on the clock'--as my Shia might say."
"Then I shall not keep you any longer, Sister." He nodded. "Who knows; maybe I will be in for drinks later."
"Of course." she said. "You are the bartender, after all. But will you be okay? That sport utility vehicle feels rather rickety. The brakes are a little weak too."
"Do not worry, Robin." He smirked. "There has not been a motor vehicle that I could not handle. If the damage is not -too- extensive, I should have it up and running by tonight."
"That will be fine." She smiled weakly. "If all goes well, I should have your liqueur by then. Just bring me the bill."
"Do not worry; I will." His smirk pulled wider, so much so that his thick lips parted over his slick enamel.
"I thought as much." She sighed. "Do not drink and drive, now. And do not drink it all in one sitting."
"-Uh---Yes, Mother...." He chuckled. "And I thought that I was the elder. Surprise, surprise...."
"Oh--shut up, you big camel!"
---
"Damocles, 96." That stick of a sycophant muttered loudly. At least... that's what she thought the flesh of her ears caught. She couldn't tell, not with that infernal ringing in her ears.
Going through a rough patch would be the understatement of the moment, soon to be annulled by another sadistic action that freak on the treads took. That terrifying claw, 'groping' at her feet... her legs... and her thighs was enough to throw her into eternal darkness. Yet that bright lamp burning above wouldn't let her.
The ringing in her ears was deafening, so loud that the possibility of actual deafness clicked. Yet that pair of boots scuffed around her, the gentle whirr of treads droned through the putrid air that followed. If she had known her diagnosis was premature conjecture, when that tape of butt-rock clicked on, she had wished her drums did rupture.
A large dome had lowered over her form, huge vibrations resonating as the brim had touched the floor. The butt-rock that had played outside; she had recognized it somehow, how the guitars' strings vibrated at their players' discretion, loud, swift, and brief twice before they came into a melody. She wasn't sure why her mind had wondered over that archaic tool of blacksmiths--
--Yet those painful, patterned resonations from that dome brought it home.
"-Uh-..." she winced at that bright halogen before her, "what...?"
"Damocles, 96." The stick continued. "Surely you have heard this story sometime before, right? Probably in a western civilization class, at least."
"Sophomore...." She squinted. Beside that bright lamp, she could just make out two squared rods towering over her, one rod flanking one of her sides. The faces of the rods that stared at her, and each other, had a single slit grinded into it, running the length of the rods for as much as she could make out.
"Don't take West Civil till I'm a junior...."
"Well," the stick said passively, "judging by our current situation, time is not on your side. So I'll give you a short brief."
"Can't wait to hear this...!" she moaned.
"This tale comes to us from the fourth century," the stick began, "before the common era. There lived a ruler named Dionysius, a tyrant as some would say, from a place called Syracuse. To all appearances he was very rich and comfortable, with all the luxuries money could buy, tasteful clothing and jewelry, and delectable food. He even had court flatterers to inflate his ego. One of these was the court sycophant Damocles. Damocles used to make comments to the king about his wealth and luxurious life. One day when Damocles complimented the tyrant on his abundance and power, Dionysius turned to Damocles and said, 'If you think I'm so lucky, how would you like to try out my life?'
"Damocles readily agreed, and so Dionysius ordered everything to be prepared for Damocles to experience what life as Dionysius was like. Damocles was enjoying himself immensely until he noticed a sharp sword hovering over his head, which was suspended from the ceiling by a single hair of a horse. This, the tyrant explained to Damocles, was what life as ruler was really like.
"I believe if you told a lie, the sword would drop, but I'm not sure about that. Yet even if it was just a figment of my own imagination, I like the idea all the same.
"Either way, Damocles was alarmed and quickly revised his idea of what made up a good life. He asked to be excused, and then eagerly returned to his poorer, but safer life."
"Well!" she blinked, her heart quickening as she eyed those rods warily. "Now I know what's going to be on a test this fall...."
"Maybe." He said. "And yet how true this tale can be, especially for you, 96."
She let her lids part all the way to their maximum. "Oh boy...!"
"From your globetrotting and expeditions, 96, haven't you discovered that when you burden yourself with the world, all your contributions will culminate in a red smear when the globe finally crushes you?" he asked. "Just face the facts, 96: Atlas, you sure as hell are not."
"Then your boss and I have something in common..."
"I've about had it with your sass, 96." He sighed. "Be grateful that Tank Man can't understand English, or he would have cut you by now. Not that you could escape what cruel fate has in store anyway."
"I'm shaking in my panties!" she exclaimed. "After today, I think I'll faint...!"
"If you survive, then be my guest." The stick said coolly. "And if you don't, I feel that I must say that it has been such a displeasure to speak with you."
His boots scrapped the cement below, to the right and approaching her side quickly yet collectedly. That stemming silhouette loomed over her, its olive back lit brightly, draping the shade from its front onto her belly. The stick took up one of its branches, and with its very tip, touched it upon her flesh. A cold tingle ran up her back. Her skin crawled out from under it as it was dragged up and down the length of her abs.
"I must say also that you are a true beauty, 96." He remarked impassively. "Your skin, so soft, so warm, nothing short of God's perfection. Your curves formed in perfect symmetry. It would be such a tragedy to ruin it, fait accompli, but it's a part of the Major's will...."
"Spare me the un-pleasantries...." She cringed.
"I wish I couldn't," the stick shrugged its bony shoulders, "but I'm afraid that work must intrude, and that it begs our attention."
The top of the silhouette turned craned its neck over a shoulder.
"Galil!" she clenched her teeth at the word.
That droning whirr came from the left, approaching her quickly, excitedly. She coughed, hacking and wheezing like a dying piece of vulture meat. Her lungs felt as though they were clawing their way out, through the trachea as that stench polluted her nostrils.
"I apologize for the stench, 96." The stick replied. "Galil can't process his wastes properly anymore. Then again, one man's shit can be one man's fuel supply."
"Oh--gross!" she gagged.
Another drone came out from the left, flat and strong, that nearly overtook the softer one completely. That bulky freak slowly rose beside her impossibly high, where a fated few could reach with ease. Its menacing talon was unusually still, purposefully still like the hand of gnarled flesh as it continued to rise. Clenched tightly within its blocky grip was a sword, thin and broad, the light running the length of the thin belly sharply.
"It's about to get a little grosser, 96." The stick mentioned. "I'd offer you anesthesia or even Novocain, but OOPS--! We're fresh out. Unless you want to know how Damocles would have felt, I suggest you answer some more questions right now."
"Wouldn't it---uh-..." she snorted, "be cheaper to get---ah---guillotine?"
"Too awkward." He said, her wannabe executioner threading accessory cord though a little ring on the back of the sword, welded halfway on the steel. "And much too quick for dear Galil's tastes."
"Tastes...?" she snuffed. "It has tastes? By that jaw, I never would have guessed."
"Unjustifiable bearings, crass jibes;" he sighed, "defense mechanisms concealing such inadequacy for your line of work. It's impressive how you made it this far, 96. A shame you won't see this mission through."
"What would you ever do without me...?" she sneered.
"We'll figure something out." The stick curled his little twig back into the branch, letting the limb hang weakly beside his thin trunk. The slick brush at the very most top angled back, his wooden face basking in the harsh light. His dark eyes like knots, the soul radiating behind them as dull as the light glinting off.
From her left came another loud unwavering drone, the towering freak shrunk while its putrid musk burned her nose. Its jaw an incandescent shine, the light smoothing over its surface, twinkling in drops of trailing water, the ones that didn't froth with bubbles. The upper lip curled into itself with ease over its enamel, glossy, "clean" barely from the blood of victims past, craving greedily for its next meal. She hacked as it let out its long, drawn out breath in her face.
"Probably move on, and interrogate some other trash we've got locked up." Stick man continued. "Maybe Galil will enjoy another great meal. But for about ten minutes, we'll be completely inconsolable. And it looks like the show's about to begin, I see."
Tank Man made another snort, grunting it out.
"Easy there, Mr. Drazen." The stick said coolly, flashing his palms. "You'll get your fill soon enough. Where was I?"
"You were about to let me off, clean and clear...."
"Oh yes!" He uncurled one of his twigs in realization, the branch folding in, bringing it to flank by his ear. "Now I remember. This is how it works, 96: the blade above you is fastened to the wall in three places. I'll be at my computer, verifying anything you say. Tank Man will cut a section of rope per falsehood, until either the blade drops or you drop the act. Got it?"
"Yeah...." She frowned.
"Good "he graced her with his olive back. His loud shuffling quieted gradually as that back sank out of sight. "Let's begin."
"Do you worst!" she spat, tiny spheres of her water shimmering in the halogen before they smacked down, flattening on her belly.
"Don't worry," the stick quipped smugly, "we will...."
---
Ron was beginning to unnerve her; he wasn't usually so solemn, full of grimace, and quiet though he was. He always had something to say, something to quip so brazenly, actively, even when the chips were down. He just laid there, his fingers laced where his plexus should be, Rufus curled into a little pink, pulsing blob in front of his pinkies.
That piece of chunky, shining steel an arm-reach away from him, mooning him with its thick chunk of blackened plastic on the coffee table...
She moved a foot in front of her, but she felt that firm grip clasp onto her shoulder as her sole pressed into the carpet.
"Don't..." her man said.
"But Yune--"
"Let him rest, T."
"But that gun, Yune." She said gently. "Do you trust him with it? What if he...?"
"If he fails Kimberly," he replied softly, "it won't be of his own doing."
"Then what do you suggest we do?" she curled her hands into fists, turning on a heel. "We can't just sit here, and pray he doesn't off himself. Come on now, Yune. There has to be something he can make himself useful with."
"Like what exactly, T?" his olive, ovoid head angled.
"I don't know!" her fists clenched, knuckles popping gently underneath the thin skin. "You're a boy! You tell me what boys do!"
"I wouldn't know." He shrugged. "But I did get off the phone with Hershel. She'll be here in less than an hour, and given what she has to say, maybe we'll figure out a next move. Till then, we're playing the waiting game."
"But--!"
"Just let him rest, Tara." He said.
"Let who rest...?" Ronald yawned. She whipped her head to the complementary side, the muscles in her neck wringing tightly. Ronald was sitting up, his arms outstretched and his chest thrust ahead. He rolled his neck slowly while his limbs flopped to his lap. The pink rodent barely managed to roll onto the cushion in time's nick.
"HEY!" Rufus' squeal was like that of a light grunt.
"Sorry, buddy." The blond sighed.
"Oh--!" She flustered. "We were just talking--"
"About you, Ronald." Her man finished her sentence without solicitation.
"Yune!" she snapped quietly.
"Calm down, T."
"About me?" Ron's back went straight, unrolling quickly from the hunch. He planted both his feet simultaneously on the carpet after spinning a quarter turn on his butt. That messy, blond mat puffed in brief as he shoot her a quizzical look.
"Yes, Ron." Yune nodded. "After last night, we're a little concerned about your well being."
"Understandable..." Ron's tongue peeked between his dry lips, coating them with natural moisture that shinned in the light. "That's what friends are for, though I push them away sometimes."
"It happens to all of us in due time." Yune said. "Arrogant to think it won't."
"Yeah..." Ron shrugged. "And I'm not going to kill myself, so don't worry. The Ron Factor may be down, but it sure as hell's not out!"
"Great to hear it." She sighed. "I don't want a repeat of Escutcheon's Aftermath."
"I grew up, Tara." He pushed himself to his feet. "It's not okay when life throws you a sucker punch, but if it keeps you down, it's just sick and wrong! Plain and simple!"
"There's the Ron we know and love!" she smiled. "Good to have you back!"
"I just needed some time to think, get in touch with roots and all." He replied. "Nothing more."
"I hope you're done fondling your roots, Ron." Her man remarked. "We've got some serious work to do later today."
"I know." He nodded. "So what's been happening while I was out?"
"I got off the phone with Hershel, like I told Tara." Yune replied. "She'll be here before the hour, and then we'll figure out something to do. I hope you know some good TV stations, Ron, because we're practically stuck here."
"Your guess is as good as mine." Ron shrugged.
"Well, I'm not going to sit here and wait for oblivion!" She threw her hands in the air. "There's got to be something around here."
"I could help you with your Hapkido." Yune offered kindly. "This apartment's plenty big."
"That's okay, Yune." She smiled back. "I wouldn't want to break anything here. Most of this stuff looks pricey."
"All Shia's doing, I bet." Her man thrust his good hand into a hip pocket on his jeans. "Drazen pays him pretty well."
"And Shia's pretty generous to his girl..." She sighed, her lips sinking into a gentle frown.
Ron shot her a look, his dark eyebrow in a kink, as did her man.
"Hmm?" the Asian hummed.
"Robin, Yune." She brought her fists up to her chest, pressing them into her breastbone gently. "It's about Robin."
"What about her?" Ronald asked.
"She loves Shia with all her heart." She closed her eyes. "I saw it in her last night. And she's afraid."
"T...?" Her man said dumbstruck, at a loss for words.
"She's afraid that she'll lose him forever." She continued. "That when it comes down to it, you'll kill him."
"Tara--" He couldn't finish his sentence.
"I want you to promise me something, Yune." She wouldn't let him, not now. "I want you to promise me that you won't kill him, no matter what happens."
"But--!"
"In little of what she did, she did a lot for us, Yune." She said. "She took us into her home, she fed us, she took Sadie in to be repaired, and even gave me a new pair of pumps."
"But T--!"
"Please, Yune." She opened her eyes. The lids glistened in the light by the brimming water. "Promise me you won't kill him."
"Tara..." the shaking of his head swept a pit in her belly, "I'm sorry...."
"But Yune--!"
"No Tara." She couldn't finish her spoken thought. "I know how you feel; I understand it completely. But I can't promise you that. You and she haven't seen Bonnet's darker side. Believe me, he'll kill you at a bat of his eye, like he did my team back in Paris."
"But--!"
"I'm sorry, Tara." He would have folded his arms, if one weren't in the sling. "I can't do that. I'm not going to risk your life or Robin's for him."
"Well--fine then!" she stomped her foot in angry protest. "Be that way! If Shia does die, then you can tell his woman why!"
"I have a sneaky suspicion she will." He said. "Did you ever read Torah, T?"
"I read the Bible." She huffed. "Cover to cover!"
"Then I'll take that as a yes..." he sighed. "By chance, did you happen to read the book of Numbers?"
"Probably, yeah...."
"Are you familiar with the 35th chapter of Numbers, concerning murderers?"
"Uh..." her eyes wondered up, beneath her brow and to the right, "no...."
"Whoever smites a man, whether it be with iron, stone, or wood, so that he may die, he is a murderer and he must be put to death." He said. "That's what's written in chapter 35, verses 16 through 18."
"Oh...."
"If you ask Robin about it," he remarked neutrally, "I'm sure she'll tell you the same as I."
"So what then?" she disputed. "Does that mean you're going to go out and do him in, for the lives of your team?"
"Though I may not have liked my team at the start," he said grimly, "but they were still my team. Shia must pay, even if it's not for my former group, then for those poor people he killed--no---murdered- back in Paris. And if we don't stop him, who will?"
"Yune...."
"But I'm not going to mismanage what little resources we have for it either." Yune nodded quickly. "I'm not going out of my way, Tara. I can promise you that. But if he's on the hunt, I'm not taking prisoners. He's an assassin, a good one. It was a miracle I could get my pistol out of the holster when that piano wire caught my neck."
"It'll work, Yune," she smiled weakly, "for me anyway. Just be careful."
"I will." He smiled warmly.
"That goes for you too, Ronald." She turned for the blond. The right hand flattened, and the boy brought the straight fingers up just beneath the pointy bangs of his hair. The elbow was in a jaunt.
"You can count on me, ma'am." He grinned. "The Ron Factor's here to save the day, not bring miser-ay."
"Uh... yeah...!" she rolled her eyes, wiping lose strands of her hair off her crown. "-Shmuck-!"
"HEY!" Ron's eyes nearly popped from their sockets, his hand at rest at his hip with a slap. "I heard that!"
"YEAH...!" That pink buddy of his squealed, crossing his forelegs like the arms of a human.
"Touchy today, aren't we?" she smirked.
---
"Well," the stick man quipped in a sort of jubilation, hushed and suppressed within his chest, "two lies down, one to go. You sure are brazen, 96. Did you honestly think this, in its entirety, was a mere bluff?"
"Yeah...." she breathed. The rope, securing the blade by the loop, seemed to have stretched by a foot at least, stretching out at her on its last limb as it were. Boldly she spoke two lies, calling him on his threat, challenging him to keep his word. Yet to her surprise, he did not disappoint. Rope cracked like a whip twice; the blade dropped in its track severely.
Realization dawned on her like daylight at the crack of dawn. For to them, she really was worthless after all.
"I kind of did." She eyed that glinting piece of impending death warily. "Can't blame a girl for trying."
"Actually, we can." The stick said smugly. "Feel better about yourself, now that you've seen where lying will get you? Are you ready to spill your guts, 96? Or does Galil have to? Believe me, 96, you do not want to know why G went to the insane asylum for."
"Oh boy...!" she said. She clenched her fingers as tight as the binding rope would allow. The pain burning in her shoulder didn't help, nor did the wet pain in her side, yet shifting her ankles within the knots seemed to cool the flare just a little--
--And the rope slithered too gently around them, too loosely, and her body dragged just a bit by the taut rope binding her hands. The angle of the blade didn't change, yet it did, seemingly swooping away and up into the ceiling barely. The cord at her feet held fast, digging its scratchy braids into the meat of her heels.
-A flick should slip it off... -
"Then again, maybe you do." The stick continued joylessly. "Then again, maybe you don't. What floats your boat is fine by me, 96, just before I sink it like the Titanic. Before it breaks in half like you. Shall we continue?"
"No--!"
"So glad you think as much." The stick chuckled over the keys' clacking, a soft and flat clatter where the very pounding of the keys overwhelmed it. "Now, 96, I'm sure you've heard this question plenty a time, when you've inexorably been captured over the course of your career."
"Just spit it out already!" she flexed her ankles gently, gradually, letting the cord brim at the soles of her heels.
"Don't you gripe at me!" the stick retorted gruffly. "I'll slap the shit out of you."
"Maybe you should have caught me yesterday morning, Stick Man!" she smirked. "Back when there was some shit to slap!"
"Oh--I ought-a--!"
The freak let out a loud grunt, wet and hoarse.
"Right...!" the stick breathed over the clacking of his keyboard. "Of course, Mr. Drazen. Vengeance is yours, saith the good Major. How quickly I forgot."
The freak let out a sigh, or what she thought was a sigh, by that blaring deflation.
"Where was I again?" the stick asked rhetorically.
"You were about to send me home." She couldn't blame herself for trying, though her captors sure as hell would hold her to it like a scalding branding iron.
"You try that a lot, don't you?" the stick quipped snootily.
"Touché..." she smirked.
"You have one last chance to come clean, 96." His remark fought her ears from his plodding steps. His silhouette loomed taller over her the louder his boots grinded the slick cement, the shiny blade's belly seemingly sinking into the slicked hair atop the darkened head. "Do you truly wish to throw it away like scrap?"
"Like I told you twice before," her toes wiggled in anticipation, "I'm on my own. No one's commissioned me, and I'm alone."
"I'll take that as a yes, then." The stick shadow sighed, folding in his branches behind his trunk. "As you wish then, 96. I'll be sure to let the Major know of your passing."
"You first..."
"In your dreams, 96." he quipped gruffly.
One of his branches unfolded from behind the trunk, folding back into itself at the crook. A switch at the extremity uncurled, pointed and straight, parallel with his chin. Her tongue peeked from out her lips, coating them with fresh slickness as her toes flexed to the extreme.
"GALIL!" he barked.
Quickly, the stick drew the switch across his throat. The freak let out an eager screech. Her eyes barely caught the glint of the arcing machete in the halogen's harsh light, before it dropped down swiftly. The giant sword rattled in the slats, and then it sank--
---Shit--! - --
--Just a little.
"You're hanging on by a thread, 96, "the stick said smugly, standing already in a victory impending, "literally. Say goodbye."
Every sort of emotion, every thought seemed to settle with each other, as if the blade dangling above did not actually exist. It felt so surreal, like a dream that could have been easily dissolved into oblivion with a wiggle of her nose, a bat of her eyes, or even a twitch of her toes...
She took in a deep breath, letting the air swell within in her lungs, and she gazed that twig straight into those dark knots on his face.
"Goodbye...!" she said softly and firmly...