Old Habits

by ChristopherWaltz

“You’re insane,” I said, still holding the gun in my hand. I hadn’t moved it from my palm, refused to place my finger on the trigger.

  “It’s a simple task, Jamie,” Harrison said. “In order for Kip and Riley to live, you have to shoot Gabe in the head. He dies, they live. Simple.”

  “Why?”

  Harrison smirked. “The simple answer is because I said so, but I have a feeling you want the longer version. The answer is because Gabe is the reason for all our troubles. Everything would have been perfect had Gabriel not made the choices he made. For that, he is going to die, and you, for being his accomplice, are going to carry out the task. Your reward is your friend and brother survive.”

  I tried to imagine how this would go down, but I didn’t have long to make a decision. If I shot Gabe, Harrison would supposedly let Riley and Kip go. But what if he didn’t? What if he was just screwing with me and was going to kill them anyway. I already knew I was going to die. What if he wanted me to kill Gabe and then he killed Riley and Kip in front of me, bringing me to my lowest only moments before my own death?

  Gabe stared at me, his expression unreadable.

  “I can’t,” I said. My hands were shaking. My entire body was shaking.

  “That’s unfortunate,” Harrison responded. He turned to Geet and, gesturing towards Ridley, said, “Kill her.”

  Geet pressed the gun against Riley’s head harder and began to squeeze the trigger, but I heard myself shout, “Wait!”

  He smiled at me, but kept the gun where it was as Riley’s tears flowed harder. “Don’t do it, Jamie,” she said. “He’s lying. We’re all dead, no matter what you do. I want this to be over with. Just let him do it.”

  “No,” I said quietly, turning to Harrison. “If I do it, you promise you’ll let them go.”

  “Scout’s honor,” Harrison said, holding up his hand and forming the Boy Scout’s sign with three fingers.

  “You have to prove it. You have to keep me alive until they’re back at home, safe and sound.”

  Harrison contemplated the idea for several seconds as I decided to prove my dedication by pointing the gun he had given me directly at Gabe’s face. Gabe took a deep breath, but his expression stayed the same.

  “You know what, Jamie, you have yourself a deal. Kill Gabe right now, and I’ll see to it that you personally escort your brother and the girl back to Indiana with Garrett.” Harrison grinned at me, hoping I would take the bait.

  “Fine,” I said, trying to steady my hand at the same time as I tried decide if I would actually go through with murdering Gabe Malvado. The entire time, I stared into Gabe’s eyes, urging him with my mind, ‘Do something! Do Something!’

  But Gabe didn’t flinch. Standing in front of him, I couldn’t tell if he had gotten his hands free or not. But if he had, he made no move to save himself.

  “Go on, Jamie,” Gabe said. Fear was not evident in his voice. “You gotta do what you gotta do. I understand. Pull the trigger.”

  This was it. I was about to murder my only friend, buying myself only a few more hours of life, but ensuring, at least I hoped, that Riley and Kip would get to live.

  “Do it,” Kip said under his breath. It killed me to hear him sound so sinister, but in his situation, I couldn’t say I would have acted differently. “This asshole is right; this is all Gabe’s fault. Everything from the beginning!”

  How had my life come to this? A year and a half ago, I was a high school student trying to come up with a way to pay my tuition to college. Now, that idea was long gone, and I was about to take someone’s life. I was about to shoot the person I had gone to for help when I decided I wanted to be a drug dealer.

  Of course, people had already died because of my actions. I had never physically killed anyone, but Airic and Ford were dead because of me. I might as well have shot Airic and set the bomb that killed Ford myself.

  I closed my eyes and tightened my finger on the trigger, feeling it begin to slide in. “No, it’s not,” I said calmly.

  “Thanks,” Gabe said.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  The door to the apartment busted inward, flying off the hinges and landing in the middle of the floor. Splintered wood flew through the air, and I faintly heard a deep voice booming, “Go! Go!”

  Everyone in the room jerked their attention in the direction of the chaos, even Kip and Riley. Scarface and Geet moved their guns towards the door, and the sound of gunfire filled the room.

  I stood, frozen, the gun still in my hand, pointed toward Gabe’s face. My jaw dropped; what the hell was going on?

  Riley screamed as Kip threw his weight towards her, knocking them both to the floor, mostly out of harm’s way. “Get down!” he yelled, still tied up, but doing his best to cover Riley’s body with his own.

  Before I could react, Gabe was grabbing the gun from my hand. Duct tape still clung to his wrists and ankles, but he was free from the chair and ready to defend us. Without emotion, he commanded me to move and aimed the gun at the back of Harrison’s head, who was focusing his attention on the ambush coming from the front of the apartment.

  As I dove onto the floor, trying to cover Kip and Riley with my body, I caught a glimpse of at least six SWAT officers clad in black riot gear. I had to assume one of them was Officer O’Kelly, though I didn’t know how he had found me, since I had instructed him to come to Harrison’s office, not mine and Gabe’s apartment.

  In a moment of dizzy chaos, I realized we had been being watched the whole time. O’Kelly and the SWAT team had cut the power to the building and had been waiting for the right moment to make their move.

  “What’s happening?” Riley shrieked as bullets whizzed through the air above us.

  “I don’t know. Stay down. Just stay down!” I shouted, out of breath and utterly terrified. I used my hands to cover both of their heads, concerned at the moment for their safety and no one else’s.

  Whatever was going on above was the problem of the people standing up; the people with guns.

  I peered under the couch, trying to catch a glimpse of what was going on, but all I could see were Scarface’s and Fuchsia’s bodies crumpled on the floor, both covered in blood and bullet holes. I covered my mouth to keep from puking and turned my head away, pressing it against Kip’s back.

  Bullets smashed through the glass wall of windows that ran the length of the apartment, sending shards flying both into the apartment and into the sky outside. Sirens were already blaring on the street below, though I couldn’t hear them until the windows had shattered.

  Feathers from the pillows on the couch flew through the air as bullets ripped through them.

  Chunks of plaster separated from the walls, spraying across the room and covering the floor.

  Anything and everything that had been sitting on tables or hanging on walls was exploding into a million pieces, flying through the air almost in slow motion.

  I squinted my eyes as dust began to fill the room, trying my hardest to find Gabe and Harrison, or at least trying to see if either of them were still alive. I saw Harrison with his back against the kitchen wall, barely out of reach from the gunfire. Geet stood next to him, reloading his gun.

  Gabe lay on the floor about ten feet away from them, clutching his shoulder, blood pouring through his fingers and onto the floor. He looked at me through clenched teeth as if to say, “What did you do?”

  I peeked under the couch again and saw at least four police officer’s bodies lying near Scarface and Fuchsia. As far as I could tell, it was now two police against Harrison and Geet; a pretty fair fight, all things considered.

  They were currently in a stalemate.

  Then I saw Harrison opening a large briefcase on the kitchen counter, pulling out a very large semiautomatic weapon. As he began to load it, I felt my body moving across the floor, towards the kitchen and hallway.

  Kip called from behind me, “What are you doing? Where are you going? Come back!”

  I crawled
across broken glass and plaster, feeling the shards cut my hands and knees, but ignored the pain as best I could. At this point, all my body knew was pain. As I glanced back, I saw who I assumed to be Officer O’Kelly grabbing both Kip and Riley and helping them to their feet. He escorted them towards the door and they disappeared around the corner, safely into the hallway. I hoped he would usher them to the stairwell at the end of the hall as the last remaining SWAT member continued to battle Harrison and Geet.

  I didn’t have time to breathe a sigh of relief as I kept crawling across the floor and into the hallway, not even sure exactly what I thought I was going to try to accomplish.

  I glanced back and saw both Harrison and Geet peering around the corner of a wall, completely unaware of my escape; they were focused only on taking down the heavily armed and protected SWAT officer.

  Once successfully in the hallway, I rose to my feet and ran the rest of the distance into my bedroom and frantically began looking for the knife Gabe had knocked out of my hand hours earlier. I found it lying against the bed, untouched since I left it there before.

  I picked it up, the grip cold against my hand, and ran back to the living room, shocked to see what had apparently unfolded in the sixty seconds it had taken me to find the weapon.

  Gabe stood, one shoulder slumped to the side, blood still running down his arm, the gun he had taken from me pointed directly at Harrison’s head.

  Harrison, with his back to me, had his gun pointed at Gabe, reciprocating the threat Gabe posed against him.

  The last SWAT officer lie motionless on the floor, dead.

  Officer O’Kelly, his SWAT helmet lying on the floor behind him, finally revealing his face, stood with his gun pointed at Harrison.

  Geet’s gun was pointed at the back of O’Kelly’s head.

  The four of them were all stuck; whoever decided to pull their trigger first would definitely be shot in return.

  “Isn’t this quite the predicament?” Harrison asked, still managing to smile, though his hair was filled with plaster dust and his shirt was torn at the sleeve. Blood was splattered down the sleeve, but it was more likely he had been cut by flying glass than shot.

  I had two options. The first was to stand back and wait to see how the situation played out. However, no matter what happened, it was likely both Gabe and Officer O’Kelly would end up shot. No matter who made the first shot, everyone else would follow, meaning Geet, the only one without a gun pointed at him, would be the only one completely safe from being shot.

  I didn’t like those odds.

  I didn’t think; I just acted.

  Without thinking, I ran into the living room and buried the blade of the knife into the back of Harrison’s head at the base of his neck. His gun fell from his hands immediately, and his body went limp, falling to the floor as I let go of the knife handle. Blood began to pool at my feet, drenching my shoes.

  In slow motion, Gabe’s expression turned to rage, and he immediately began screaming, “What have you done? Jamie, no!”

  Geet lowered his weapon, his face more confused than mine as Gabe continued to yell. He grabbed Gabe by his good shoulder and pulled him towards the apartment door, as Gabe continued to scream at me in anger. The last I saw of them, Geet had wrapped his arms around Gabe’s waist to keep him from reentering the apartment, and they disappeared around the corner.

  I expected Officer O’Kelly to chase after them, but he pointed his weapon directly at me and screamed, “Don’t move!”

  I held my hands in the air and stepped towards him. “It’s okay. It’s over now. We did—“

  Before I could get the sentence out, however, Officer O’Kelly pulled the trigger of his gun and shot me square in the stomach.

  Holding my abdomen as if I had just been gutted, I collapsed to the floor and clasped my hands over the wound, trying to stop the blood, but within seconds, my hands were covered and I could see dark red liquid beginning to puddle in front of me.

  I tried to speak, tried to ask Officer O’Kelly why he had shot me, but I could feel my eyes going unfocused. My body went cold, and my hands began to tingle like when they begin to fall asleep.

  Pins and needles, they call it.

  Riley and Kip were safe…

  My body was numb…

  Gabe was gone…

  Harrison was dead…

  I tasted blood…

  I tried to focus on anything to keep me awake, but the apartment around me seemed to exist less and less each time I blinked my eyes. I felt as if I was waking up from being knocked out, only backwards.

  And then there was only blackness.

  (Gabriel Malvado)