shot.
Len, a sworn noncombatant, a journalist who was not allowed to participate in the fighting, picked up Justin’s M4, flicked off the safety, aimed it at center mass, and pulled the trigger. Boom. The kid clutched his chest, and Len could tell from the labored breathing and pink foamy blood that he’d shot him through a lung. In a haze of hate and adrenaline, Len watched the boy suffocate and die.
Len knelt down beside Justin to see if he could stop the bleeding. The other soldiers who had been downstairs came running up at the sounds of the shots, but they got there just as the awareness was draining from Justin’s eyes. Justin bled out before he could be medevacked to camp. He couldn’t be saved. The other men knew what had happened, but it was never spoken of again. The official report given to Justin’s parents stated that he had valiantly killed his own attacker to save the lives of his comrades downstairs.
Len wrote to his employer two days later asking to be reassigned somewhere stateside.
At first there was nothing but anger and sadness. Len spent a lot of time wondering why Justin had been brought into this world just to be cut down senselessly before his life had really gotten started. What was the point of his time here? Poor Justin was in Iraq serving a death sentence because his own family refused to understand him.
After a year or two, though, the anger subsided, and Len began to ask himself the same questions about the Iraqi kid. The unfortunate little bastard was just trying to defend his family from the foreign invaders destroying his country. He couldn’t even load a gun correctly. He was probably still a virgin. Before coming to Iraq, Len had spent five years studying a martial art in Japan, for Christ’s sake; he could have just wrestled the little punk to the ground and he’d still be alive today. Len couldn’t justify or undo the kid’s death.
Guilt over something that could never be made right again was the worst of hells, and Len spent an awful lot of time there, drinking himself to sleep at night. Len, Justin, and the Iraqi kid just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it was made much shittier than it had to be.
___ _
And now Len found himself at the IRS building in Philadelphia, holding a gun to the head of the man who’d put his father in the ground, with the opportunity to avenge another death. The opportunity to make things still shittier.
Edward Burkholder had been the lead auditor in the Bernard Savitz case, the man who withheld evidence that would have proved the innocence of Len’s father. This was the man who’d intentionally ruined Bernard Savitz’s life in order to make a name for himself within the agency. And here he was, in the fancy corner office he’d earned by killing a decent, honest family man.
Len looked at the desk the man had been hiding under. There, next to the blotter, was a picture of Edward Burkholder with his wife, two grown children, and what Len presumed was a grandchild of about two. Burkholder’s kids were probably in diapers when he was auditing Len’s father.
“Are those your wife and kids?” Len asked.
“Yes! Please don’t kill me!”
“OK, I won’t,” Len said.
“Oh, thank Go—”
Before he could even finish his sentence, Len fired a .45-caliber slug into the man’s kneecap. Burkholder let out an ear-piercing wail and grabbed his bleeding appendage.
Len squatted down and grabbed Burkholder’s face by the jaw, which was now streaming with tears and spattered in blood and bone shards. He forced Burkholder to look him in the eyes.
“That knee will never be the same. I want you to have a constant reminder of all the misery you’ve caused in this world, you fucking prick. I’m letting you live to give you an opportunity to change for the better. Do you understand?”
Burkholder turned white and could only nod before passing out from the pain.
“Well, aren’t you merciful,” Jefferson sneered
Len, a sworn noncombatant, a journalist who was not allowed to participate in the fighting, picked up Justin’s M4, flicked off the safety, aimed it at center mass, and pulled the trigger. Boom. The kid clutched his chest, and Len could tell from the labored breathing and pink foamy blood that he’d shot him through a lung. In a haze of hate and adrenaline, Len watched the boy suffocate and die.
Len knelt down beside Justin to see if he could stop the bleeding. The other soldiers who had been downstairs came running up at the sounds of the shots, but they got there just as the awareness was draining from Justin’s eyes. Justin bled out before he could be medevacked to camp. He couldn’t be saved. The other men knew what had happened, but it was never spoken of again. The official report given to Justin’s parents stated that he had valiantly killed his own attacker to save the lives of his comrades downstairs.
Len wrote to his employer two days later asking to be reassigned somewhere stateside.
At first there was nothing but anger and sadness. Len spent a lot of time wondering why Justin had been brought into this world just to be cut down senselessly before his life had really gotten started. What was the point of his time here? Poor Justin was in Iraq serving a death sentence because his own family refused to understand him.
After a year or two, though, the anger subsided, and Len began to ask himself the same questions about the Iraqi kid. The unfortunate little bastard was just trying to defend his family from the foreign invaders destroying his country. He couldn’t even load a gun correctly. He was probably still a virgin. Before coming to Iraq, Len had spent five years studying a martial art in Japan, for Christ’s sake; he could have just wrestled the little punk to the ground and he’d still be alive today. Len couldn’t justify or undo the kid’s death.
Guilt over something that could never be made right again was the worst of hells, and Len spent an awful lot of time there, drinking himself to sleep at night. Len, Justin, and the Iraqi kid just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it was made much shittier than it had to be.
___ _
And now Len found himself at the IRS building in Philadelphia, holding a gun to the head of the man who’d put his father in the ground, with the opportunity to avenge another death. The opportunity to make things still shittier.
Edward Burkholder had been the lead auditor in the Bernard Savitz case, the man who withheld evidence that would have proved the innocence of Len’s father. This was the man who’d intentionally ruined Bernard Savitz’s life in order to make a name for himself within the agency. And here he was, in the fancy corner office he’d earned by killing a decent, honest family man.
Len looked at the desk the man had been hiding under. There, next to the blotter, was a picture of Edward Burkholder with his wife, two grown children, and what Len presumed was a grandchild of about two. Burkholder’s kids were probably in diapers when he was auditing Len’s father.
“Are those your wife and kids?” Len asked.
“Yes! Please don’t kill me!”
“OK, I won’t,” Len said.
“Oh, thank Go—”
Before he could even finish his sentence, Len fired a .45-caliber slug into the man’s kneecap. Burkholder let out an ear-piercing wail and grabbed his bleeding appendage.
Len squatted down and grabbed Burkholder’s face by the jaw, which was now streaming with tears and spattered in blood and bone shards. He forced Burkholder to look him in the eyes.
“That knee will never be the same. I want you to have a constant reminder of all the misery you’ve caused in this world, you fucking prick. I’m letting you live to give you an opportunity to change for the better. Do you understand?”
Burkholder turned white and could only nod before passing out from the pain.
“Well, aren’t you merciful,” Jefferson sneered
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