To Protect*

Madeline knelt on the ground weeping. The asphalt was cold and dug into her knees. "I didn't do it it, Jesse," mucus streamed from her nostrils, mixing with her tears and the blood running down her forehead. "I swear to God!"

Jesse, a few feet away from Madeline, was holding a gun. The gun was pointed at the head of a man bound and gagged, lying on the floor of he alley. Jesse snatched a fistful of Madeline's hair. Madeline followed his hand, whimpering as he led her to the unnamed man. Once she was within six inches of the man, Jesse grasped the back of her cranium, pushing her face to the man's chest. "I want you soak this moment into your senses. I want you to remember his face, his taste, the way he smells, how he feels, the sound of him breathing. 'Cause baby, you're never gonna hear that sound again."

Madeline cried out a sound that only a dying animal could understand. A string of saliva stretched the gap of her lips.

Jesse held her there, to the man's chest, as he walked around the two, to place the end of the gun barrel to the man's right temple. Jesse squeezed the trigger and a shower of blood ran down the three of them.

Jesse let go of Madeline, and then helped her stand up, supporting her elbow.

"I swear... I ... I..." she stammered.

"I don't care," Jesse looked into her eyes, full of thought. "Now I know you won't, that's all that matters to me." Jess took Madeline's arms, and placed them around his neck, as if she could not move them herself. Madeline looked terrified back into his eyes, felt the early tremors of a seizure and blacked out.


*The names have been changed to protect the innocent, and the guilty.