“You’re being delirious!”, Shane retorts in a louder voice, looking at him with killer eyes, “What the fuck are you talking about?! Playing God?! What the hell do you think you’re doing with us, you motherfucker?!”.

“…I’ll take Johnny with me. Yeah, I’ll take him with me. He’s going to be just fine”. Still Sanders’ voice. Mumbling pensively. He must be talking to himself.

I’m staring at Tasha and she’s staring back at me. Time seems to stop.

“Mister Sanders, do you know what the word pipped means…?”, I exclaim conversationally, and apparently out of the blue.

He stops talking abruptly, and turns his face to me, his lips still parted.

“Lieutenant, you have to stop –“. Annoyed, bored tone.

“Jump off!”, I order then, and Tasha springs up suddenly, her whole body bent over and still partly tied to the chair, charging Justine with a furious growl. Her head and shoulder collide with the woman’s belly and she tries hard to ward off, but she can’t, she’s not trained too, she’s too thin and delicate, and Tasha can be a bull and she’s a fighter. And Justine’s back smashes against the wall behind her shoulders, and the remote she’s holding just slips away, falling on the floor.

It’s a brief moment. It’s just a fistful of rapid seconds, three, maybe four. But they last enough.

I raise my right hand, loading the gun, aiming rapidly at Sanders’ head.

“…It means that you’re hit by a bullet”, I murmur, and pull the trigger.

Gun powder. A blast. A black hole right in the middle of his forehead. His eyes wide open. His lips parted. His fingers loosening the grip on the remote he’s holding. His feet stepping back. One step, two steps, faltering and insecure. Then his back hits the classy ornaments on the fireplace. A small, crystal statuette rolls in the air and crashes in hundreds of pieces on the floor. Jack Sanders’ knees bend with a fluid, silent movement. His body just jams and slips down with no sounds.

”I took you home
Set you on the glass
I pulled off your wings
Then I laughed
I watched a change
In you
It’s like you never
Had wings
Now you feel
So alive
I’ve watched you change
It’s like you never
Had wings…”