Jacob pulled the gun for his pocket as he chased after the girl in her torn, golden dress, and the stolen ceremonial sword wrapped in thick leathers clutched tight to her chest. She looked back at him as she ran, a wild and desperate look in her eyes, and nearly tripped by not looking at what was in front of her because of it.
Jacob shouted after he, telling her to stop or he would shoot, but it only made the girl run faster. He really did not want to have to shoot her, but he was quickly running out of options. She had stolen a valuable artifact from the city, worth well over two million credits. He had been fortunate to catch her on her way out of the vault, having arrived early in order to prepare for his shift, and she clearly hadn't been anticipating his presence. The moment she had seen him, she had bolted, making herself only more apparent, and he had followed her quickly.
Taking a deep, regretful breath, he squeezed the trigger and fired a round after her. Running threw off his aim, however, and the bullet whizzed past her head, just catching a bit of her hair. She screamed in surprise and fear, the loud explosion from the muzzle scaring her more than the bullet, and she tripped hard over her feet and fell face first into the cold, hard concrete.
Jacob, was finally able to catch up to her, and stopped just a few paces behind her, gun trained on her back. If he had to take a second shot, he knew without a doubt that he wouldn't miss this time. "It's time to give up," he warned, his voice maintaining a practiced steadiness. "Put the sword down. Give yourself in. I'll be able to make this all a lot easier on you if you do that. Please, just give up."
Slowly, the girl sat up, still clutching the sword like it was her last lifeline. She looked back at Jacob, her eyes a mixture of fear and cool calculation. He wasn't sure what it meant, but there was one thing that he was immediately sure of. She had no intentions of giving up. "I'm sorry," he said, and pulled the trigger.
But as he did, a shiver ran down his spine. The fear in her eyes was gone, replaced entirely with calculation. For a split second, the world seemed to hesitate, as if time itself had hiccuped. His gun began to fire, the bullet exploding from its chamber and launching forth, and suddenly the girl was in motion, faster than he could comprehend. She was on her feet, bolting in a circle around him, before smashing him in the spine with the flat of her stolen blade. He hit the ground and rolled, and when he came to a stop, she was far in the distance, running at the pace she had been maintaining before.
He had no idea what had just happened. But he knew he wasn't going to catch her now.
He only wondered why she hadn't done whatever she had done sooner.
No comments:
Post a Comment