Chapter Six: Made to be Courageous

As the first screams rang out, Spike cursed his blindness – and his canine hearing. Because he'd heard the clerk collapse. Heard her gasp and clutch at her chest, right before going slack. An innocent life, snuffed out in moments. Less than a meter away from the blind, helpless SRU cop. Reminded of his status, Spike reached back, quickly tugging his badge out of its hidden pocket in his jeans. He pulled it in front of him and pressed it into Thomas's hands; the boys were clinging to him, but not screaming. Good.

Behind him, he heard the gunman yelling orders, probably waving his gun around to reinforce those orders. People were still screaming and panicking, but none of them were armed. Spike knew, very well, that there were enough people in the grocery store to overwhelm a lone gunman, but he hoped they wouldn't charge the man. One person had lost her life already – if the gunman was rushed, he'd almost certainly take at least one more life as he fired reflexively into the crowd.

Focusing back on his charges, Spike whispered, "Stay close to me, you two. You're gonna be okay, I promise." The boys nodded into his chest and he spared one last second to hug them. Then he straightened and turned around, locating the gunman easily as the man's voice rose, growing hysterical at the lack of cooperation from his store full of hostages.

Drawing in a deep breath, Spike lifted his hands, keeping the palms open. "Hey. Hey." He waited for the gunman to look at him. "Easy, buddy, you're in charge. You don't need to yell; we're all listening, okay?"

In the depths of the darkness that was his world, Spike saw emerald glint off the barrel of the gun pointing in his direction. He automatically flinched, but kept his hands wide and open. "Look, it's a grocery store. They've got an intercom; you can talk to all of us that way. Just tell us what we gotta do to stay safe."

The fear and panic around him was tangible, but the more the gunman focused on him and the more he stayed perfectly calm and reasonable, the more the other hostages began to calm down themselves. He had a feeling there were plenty of folks slipping out the doors – with the gunman looking in his direction, there was no one watching the exit. Only the people who'd been in various checkout lines were in sight of the gunman, leaving those in the rest of the store free to escape.

With one of their number submitting to the scary gunman, the other people in the store followed his lead and surrendered, allowing themselves to be corralled by the man who'd shot one of the store clerks. Several of the other female clerks whimpered in grief and fear – the fallen clerk had been well-liked by her coworkers and they all knew about her abusive ex-boyfriend with the temper.

When a little blond boy asked one of the clerks if their friend had had a restraining order, she nodded back, then watched in astonishment as the little boy returned to the man who'd been so very quick to surrender to their captor. She saw the blond lean up and whisper to the dark-haired man; he nodded, turning his head towards her for an instant before shifting back to his two children – she frowned as she realized both boys were blond, the older sporting a slightly darker shade than his brother. How had someone with black hair gotten two blonds?

Ex-boyfriend, restraining order – domestic violence hot call all the way, with a predictably tragic ending. Except this guy's temper was so hair-trigger that he'd pulled a gun in the middle of a crowded grocery store, putting dozens of innocents in danger. Spike tilted his head, evaluating the subject as best he could without his teammates. Negotiation would have to be attempted – that was SRU policy, especially with so many hostages in the line of fire – but he wasn't holding his breath on that negotiation being successful. It might get a couple hostages out, maybe even a dozen or so, but Spike had a feeling the subject was too volatile for even Sarge to talk him down. Especially with the girl dead and permanently out of his control.

The constable was certain his fellow cops were already on their way, which meant he had to move fast himself. Low, he ordered, "Karl, keep an eye on our gunman, okay? Tell us if he looks over here."

"Yessir."

"Thomas, need you to take my phone and do exactly what I tell you."

The younger boy nodded, grabbing his smartphone off its belt clip. "Ready, Spike."

Keeping his voice down, but not whispering, Spike walked the youngster through setting off a specialized code; the SRU would know within seconds that he'd landed in a hostage situation. Code sent, he kept giving instructions – Thomas dialed a special number that immediately hooked Spike's phone into the SRU comm network and input a second code that shut down the phone's ability to broadcast any audio from the other end of the line. Though Spike's teammates would be able to hear everything the phone did, the gunman wouldn't be able to use the phone to eavesdrop on his opponents.

Less than a minute after Thomas finished setting up the phone, Spike heard the sirens of squad cars arriving outside the grocery store. Thinking fast, the computer tech snatched his phone back, hastily issuing his own set of commands to the phone, praying the navigation would do exactly what it needed to. He slipped it back into Thomas's grip, murmuring, "Turn the volume up."

Just as he'd anticipated, the arrival of squad cars was more than enough to set the subject off. He tensed, waving his gun at his hostages as he demanded they take out their wallets and phones. Spike listened to all of his fellow hostages complying, many of them crying out in dismay as their beloved technological companions were mercilessly crushed underfoot.

"Take ten steps forward and turn left."

All movement stopped, heads swinging towards Spike and the two boys. Spike ducked his head, flushing all the way up to his ears as he snatched his phone back from Thomas and hissed, "End navigation."

"Cancelling navigation," the phone replied in its typical placid female voice.

"Gimme that!" the gunman roared, reaching for the device.

Spike curled around the phone, lifting pleading eyes to his captor. "Look, please, I'll shut it off, but please don't break it. I paid a fortune to get it set up so I don't have to use the keyboard."

He could hear the sneer, but then the gunman paused, eyeing him. "How come you can't use the keyboard?"

Drawing in a deep breath, Spike reached up and pulled his black sunglasses off. As the weeks had gone by, his eyes had gotten paler and paler according to his friends. Maybe he wouldn't have to say it. Lifting his blank gaze to his captor, Spike waited for the response.

At the low, shocked curse, he knew the other man had figured it out. "You're blind?"

Whispers broke out amongst the rest of the hostages, all of them shocked that their 'leader' was blind.

He swallowed hard. "Yeah," he whispered. "Couldn't tell anyone what you look like if my life depended on it."

For the space of several heartbeats, the moment hung. Then the gunman sneered and cracked Spike across the face with his gun; he fell sideways, hand automatically rising to the injury. "Fine, blindy, you can keep your stupid phone. But I wanna see you turn it off. Now."

He swallowed bile and nodded. Carefully, he stretched out the hand with the phone in it. "System shut down. Authorization code, ten-break-alpha; strike, strike, strike."

"Acknowledged. Shutting down."

As the phone shut down, vibrating in Spike's hand, the gunman snorted. "How'd a blind guy pick up something from that old Andromeda series?"

Behind him, he sensed Karl and Thomas's alarm, but the constable never turned a hair as he gazed up towards his captor. "I have Stargardt's (1)," he explained. "Started losing my vision in high school." One shoulder shrugged. "Did all the right things, you know? Sunglasses every time I go outside, plus a hat, even in the middle of summer. No smoking or anything." His head dropped. "Even set up my computer with all the vision assist stuff so I could keep on programming."

"Didn't help?" the gunman asked, drawn in and sympathetic.

He shook his head, letting a pound of bitter in. "Finally lost it all just a couple weeks ago. Guess I'm one of the 'lucky' ones."

"I know what that's like," the gunman agreed – emerald traced around his form as he glared back at his victim, still lying behind her cash register in a pool of her own blood.

Inwardly, the constable shuddered, but outwardly, he lifted his head again. "Hey, um, can I ask a favor?"

Hard suspicion landed on him, eyes narrowing. "You can ask." Warning dripped from the other's tone.

Spike shrank back, licking his lips in nervousness. "I'm, ah, I'm not used to not being able to see, know what I mean?" He laughed, bitter and nerves joining as one. "I mean, used to be able to see a little bit before, well…you know…"

"Stop blathering!"

"Right, yeah," Spike agreed, nodding fast and furious. "Can I have Thomas here tell me what's going on? Just so I'm not totally in the dark?"

He felt the force of the subject's suspicious glare. "What kinda computer programmer were you?"

"Finance company," Spike replied at once. "Helped build up their big online banking website so people can get loans easy-peasy."

"You mean so people can get fleeced easy-peasy," the other man growled.

He cringed back, the picture of subservient contrition. "Look, online banking's big business these days; everyone wants it," he whined. "I just do what they tell me." He let himself slump. "Soon as they found out I couldn't see, they dropped me." Fresh bitterness rang. "So much for an Equal Opportunity employer."

The gunman snorted and waved a hand, abruptly magnanimous. "Fine, whatever. Long as the brat stays quiet, he can tell you whatever."

"Don't worry, sir," Karl piped up at once. "I'll make sure my little brother doesn't bother you."

Spike's shoulders shook with silent laughter at the oh-so-very Ed response from the young boy. Guys, you're gonna love these two, he decided; Thomas's pout was so pronounced that he could almost see it, even in the constant darkness around him.

He waited until the gunman moved away, waited until the subject had gone through the next four hostages. When he was sure the man was sufficiently distracted from his blind hostage, he slipped his phone back to Thomas. "Okay, kiddo, talk to me. Tell me what you see."

He 'saw' Thomas cast a dubious look down at the silent phone in his hands, but then the little boy nodded and lifted trusting eyes to Spike's. "We're really gonna be okay?"

"My word on it," Spike promised without hesitation. "We can make it; I know we can."

It took another few seconds, but Thomas nodded and snuggled closer to Spike. Looking down at the phone, he drew in a breath and began to talk, describing the scene. Quietly, Spike directed him to different subjects, like the restraining order their victim had taken out on her ex-boyfriend, and the way the store itself was laid out, not just around the cash registers, but also in the back and the opposite side of the entrance. The veteran officer even had Thomas describe as much of the windows as he could see from their position and count how many registers were between the hostages and the grocery store's front entrance.

Minutes crawled by as Spike patiently worked his way from topic to topic, always switching back to 'innocent' ones when the gunman was closer, but each avenue designed to pass on as much information as possible. At length, he heard the distant sound of a new siren – very like the squad cars', but he knew that particular pitch. He knew who was coming – who'd been coming from the instant that idiot pulled out a gun in a crowded grocery store.

His team.

It was agonizing to sit and wait. To know that he was the one in need of rescue this time. The blind SRU constable, so totally helpless that he could be less than a meter away from an escalating hot call and unable to prevent it. His fingers clenched and sightless eyes stole back towards the poor victim who'd done everything right, only to end up dead anyway. It was cruel and unfair – but sometimes, they couldn't help. Couldn't bring everyone home alive, no matter how hard they tried.

Inhaling, Spike counted out several heartbeats before exhaling, forcing himself to calm down. His team needed as much intel as he could give them. He had to keep the other hostages alive and safe. Had to keep the two little boys who'd only been trying to help him safe.

Distantly, he heard a phone ring. Lifting his head, he turned towards the sound, mind racing. Not a cellphone – it sounded more like a landline. A store phone, it had to be. Ahhhh…negotiation attempt in progress. He lowered a hand to Thomas's shoulder. "Quiet now," he murmured.

" 'Kay," Thomas replied, leaning into his side.

He rubbed the boy's back. "You're doing great, sport. You and your brother."

Hair rose on his neck and he turned his head just in time to 'see' the gunman approach, weapon up and pointed. He kept his hands low and spread them in surrender. A yelp broke free when the gunman grabbed the back of his shirt and yanked. "What?"

"Come on, blindy," the subject demanded. "I got some cop on the line and I ain't gonna let him hear me."

It took a second of scrabbling before he made it to his feet; he pushed away enough to free his shirt, but tamely accepted it when the gunman grabbed his wrist and dragged him along, deliberately smacking him into a handy conveyor belt on their way through the registers. He heard several hostages cry out in objection when he rebounded off the metal with a stagger and a moan; inwardly, he winced, knowing the bruise on his hip would be impressive, but otherwise cooperated with every move his captor made. He couldn't let the subject suspect he was anything more than a poor blind man.

When they reached the phone, he was flung into the desk that the phone was sitting on and nearly fell. Struggling to keep his balance, he turned wide, frightened eyes onto the subject, refusing to pick up the phone until the other man growled and thrust it into his hands, muttering under his breath about pathetic blind rejects and no wonder that bank had fired this hapless idiot.

Smirking inwardly, he lifted the phone to his ear and stuttered, "He…hello?"

"Spike," the voice on the other end breathed – and he froze, terror skittering up his spine.

It wasn't Sarge.

[1] Stargart's is a progressive loss of vision – typically central vision – early in life. It typically presents before an individual's 20th birthday and is genetically inherited. Often, peripheral (side) vision remains intact, but occasionally, that can be lost as well.

Author Note: Happy 4th of July to all my fellow Americans! (Yes, I know it's next week, but I won't post again until after the 4th, so...)

I have been a very, very busy bee over the past two weeks - I had a five day furlough, so I spent most of that furlough working on a Query Letter, a Synopsis, and a starting list of agents. I had considered sharing the Query Letter with everyone, but I discovered yesterday that despite all the Internet articles I read on query letters (in many cases, along with samples), I misunderstood how the different Query Letter word counts actually work.

So... Back to the drawing board, but I thank the Lord Jesus that He brought this to my attention well in advance of when I need to submit the Developmental Edit.

I value your support, I treasure your prayers, but in the meantime, a review or comment absolutely make my day! So thank you to those who are regular reviewers and I welcome any readers who are willing to drop a word or three. = )

So - Happy 4th of July, America, and to all my International readers - I wish you a wonderful weekend!