She walked up to me, so helpless in my binds. “Checkmate, Doctor,” said Detective Olistar. This shining badge of office stood before me, defiant. “You're spree is over.”875Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAwCbzmpWBw
“And what a spree it was,” I said locking eyes with her. This firebrand, this green-eyed detective who’d brought me low. “I'm sure we’ll see each other soon, my dear Detective.”875Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡT4Raonxm1h
Detective Olistar scoffed. “Only when they switch on the chair,” she said through a forced smile. “This is the last smile you’ll make Peter.”875Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCw1a3LnT2u
“Ah but that's where you're wrong,” I said, shifting in my manacles. Two Cops sat at my sides with their nightsticks and one .38 Chief Special between them. I leered at those green-eyes, looking, hoping to keep her fire alive. “I'll be sure I die with a grin.” My lips spread wide and my teeth clenched. The infamous Peter Smiles better keep up appearances, especially in front of her.875Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZyBhJvsPka
Brave, gorgeous, and a temper like a steam engine. Detective Olistar was my Holmes, the knight to my dragon. “But what fun is there in being the mouse if you can't get caught?” I asked as I was being manhandled into the back of a paddy wagon. “Where would the thrill be in splitting throats from ear to ear in a bright crimson smile if there was no chance of being caught?” I chuckled, feeling it roll over me. I'd lost the game, yet here I was as happy as a clam ready to be boiled. I was helpless and had no control, and I reveled in it.875Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfRKHjxjFu6
Olistar crossed her arms and raised a brow. “I got you because I'm better than you,” she said, tilting in at the waist. “Not smarter, not faster, not stronger, just better.” There was a slight frown lacing the edges of her lips. “You, Dr. Clyde Langley are gonna fry, and I'll be sure to watch every second.”875Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmCIBTs4mFU
“Oh come now, don't tease me with such formality,” I said. She’d used my full name, another power play. “Its Peter to my friends.” I was pulled into the back of the paddywagon and locked to the floor by chains and keys. As the doors closed she looked at me with such contempt, it was a solid vitriol that I could smell in the air as gunpowder. The smell lingered as the convoy was taking me down the cobbled streets toward my holding cell. It only occurred to me too late that it was, indeed, actual gunpowder. An explosion rocked the front of the convoy, shaking the paddywagon with vibrations and pulses of pressure.875Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk760SN2qle
The cops at my sides began to clamber out of the small wagon but another explosion knocked the cart onto its side, sending bone, blood, and splintered wood about as the two cops were caught in the blast. I landed on my side at an awkward angle, hitting my head on the small bench seating in the wagon. I could feel blood drip from the side of my head, and a bit of shrapnel digging into my shoulder. I groaned as I tried to right myself, but found myself still manacled to the floor. Fortunately enough, the wood had splintered, and with a swift kick to the floor I was somewhat free.875Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUHjCnsqWlz
I hobbled out, climbing over the corpse of one of the cops. A gleam of shining steel met my eye as I plucked the .38 Chief Special from his dead fingers.875Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBIZ9ICSyz7
“Liberty or Death!” I heard being chanted again and again. A rebel attack, here of all places and now of all times. I was ready to die, knowing I'd been beaten. Not only beaten, beaten by her. It wasn't only unfair, it was downright impolite. The Wrens they called themselves, a militia turned movement in New England. They wouldn't know freedom from a gilded cage, and this proved their idiocy firmly in my mind. I strode forward, past the newly forming barricade along the sidewalk. Bullets whizzed by, one catching me in the calf as I tried to duck behind and overturned wagon. I'd always been a decent shot, but I wasn't fond of firearms. There wasn't anything personal about them, a weapon for someone with no imagination. Yet here I was, placing a bullet into the shoulder of some blonde boy. 875Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv9f8JTP56M
Five more shots. How frustrating, how limiting, and how down right unamusing. They were spoiling it all, all these moves on the chessboard reduced to some idiot knocking the playing table over. I scanned to see if there were any other police left around. That's when I saw her. Olistar, my dear Olistar pinned down by gunfire with a bit of wheel in her leg. I was furious. How dare they? These Wrens with not but a horrible song to warble? I stood and began to shuffled toward her, my green-eyed knight. A bullet strayed past my ear, catching a bit of cartilage and sending a splatter of blood across my face and neck. I fired in response, landing a shot on a woman with a rifle and an older man with a pistol. 875Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKs1bGZssiQ
Three shots left, and still several more meters to her. She was pale, the beautiful pleasant pale color of someone draining of blood. Usually, in other circumstances, I would relish the plaid complexion of her skin, the sound of blood pumping from a wound, but this was Olistar. My conqueror, my compass, the plow that split the earth to sow something great and new. A bullet whizzed passed my head, I reacted with two shots in that direction, missing one shot. The assailant fell down grabbing at their throat, blood seeping through their fingers. Satisfaction rolled over me as I drew closer to the Firebrand. She stared daggers into me, trying in vain to lift her pistol toward me. Her sidearm of choice, a Single Action Army, was leveled toward me and clicked to bear no lead fruit.875Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3eyX9mS1DD
One shot left, and its use drifted through my head. I knew whose name was on that bullet, and it made me smile.875Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1GgrkVkzEn
“Of course you're alive,” Olistar groaned in pain. She gulped and looked at the gun in my hand. “Go on then Peter, I know you want to.”875Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡt8nwJwWApL
I crouched down and removed the keys from her side. Unlocking my manacles in frustration I couldn't help but be offended by her. “Have you learned nothing my dear Olistar?” I said with a grunt. I pulled the heavy chains off myself and tucked the gun into the back of my pants. “I had expected more from you, my great adversary. Moves and counter-moves, always.”875Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkIBnSSEI7K
She looked at me quizzically as I lifted her to her feet. We limped away, under the cover of the rising smoke and riot that had started this mess. Fires were burning now, and the Wrens had taken to the streets. What were a lame criminal and his injured captor to the force of the people? No,we’d be safe enough for a time, time enough for me to put my medical license to work.875Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPmkths54XF
Olistar had passed out by the time I'd found a nice enough hovel to hide up away in. I began to work on Olistar with what I had. We were in a bar, with enough alcohol to sanitize every square inch of the place. I found clean rags, sharp steak knives, butcher's twine, it would all have to make due. I worked on her first, opening the wound caused by the bit of wheel in her leg just enough to find leverage on the bit of shrapnel. It was a long twisted things that dug deep into her thigh muscle. Severe damage but survivable under my care. With deft hands and a few flicks of my knife I was able to remove the shrapnel with a spurt of blood.
“My poor poor Olistar, your bright green eyes so dull with pain,” I crooned over her as I sewed up the wound with with butcher's twine and a martini garnish. “You won't die, only flourish under my care.” I could feel myself darken, the twine sewn wound, her soft breathing, the pulse of veins in her neck. It was inebriating and difficult to fight back the urge to give her a smile, my best smile. 875Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9p0GeBQAhs
She woke some time later. She looked down at her bandaged and splint leg, then over at me as I nursed a bottle of scotch. 875Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiuOfITQ8kY
“Is this a sick game to you?” Olistar snapped in a hushed voice. The tenebrae of night would soon take the city, only punctured by the fires of the Wrens and their cries for Freedom and Justice.875Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGMy82lNm8p
“All birds want to fly free,” I said. “These rebels are no different.” I paused and drank from the scotch, letting the peat of it burn down my throat. “I suppose I'm not that kind of songbird.”875Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCE9ivY3Rkh
“You're crazy, doctor,” Olistar said planely. “You're a sick man.” There was something in her eyes, something different than the usual intensity. She was sad.875Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLr4cn9dwQ8
“Ah,” I sighed. “And now you expect me to lay it all bare for you, my dear detective?” I chuckled and took a swig of scotch. I could feel the room spin, each mote of light was a green eye full of pity. Each curve was a smile. “No...no I think it’s better this way.” 875Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡC3N5UDvjg0
I pulled out the revolver from its hiding place. I staggered over to Olistar who didn't as much as flinch when I pointed the gun at her. We stood there, her green eyes locked on me. They were so full of life, in spite of it all. She was defiant, and nothing else mattered as the gun went lax in my hand. I chuckled as I placed the gun in her hand and knelt before her. She was an altar now, as I moved the barrel toward my forehead. One shot left, a bullet with my name on it.875Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJNWrWb4ihh
I wrapped her fingers around the hammer and helped her cock it back. Her fingers tensed around the grip, index finger around the trigger. I locked eyes with her, those green green eyes now full of confusion, anger, and pity.875Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKAviI9y328
“Checkmate, my dear Detective,” I pulled her finger back, and fell into oblivion.
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