Promised Ride by Joanna Wilson

 
    Promised Ride
     
    “So this is the longest second,” thought Christie Monroe as she watched the cylinder slowly start to turn on the Smith & Wesson 442 that was pointed at her face. The club preferred revolvers for kill guns because they didn’t leave brass lying around and wouldn’t drop a spent cartridge on the road if you had to use it from your bike.
     
    She had heard other agents joke about “the longest second” at ATF headquarters. “It’s the longest second of your life,” one agent had explained to her over a cup of coffee, “because it’s usually the last second of your life, and your body wants to stretch it out and make it last,” Another agent, who had been shot in the line of duty, swore that with his mind driven into overdrive by the fear of the moment, he had been able to watch the bullet spin from the end of the barrel and cross the room to impact squarely in the middle of his vest. “Damn good thing he was wearing kevlar,” he had snorted.
     
    Christie wasn’t wearing a vest, so head or chest, it didn’t matter. The .38 would blow a fatal hole through her body. The high-speed bullet would turn her brain or her heart or her lungs to jelly. And at such a short range as this, the shooter couldn’t possibly miss a critical target area.
     
    She had always thought that the office legend about time slowing down when you knew you were about to die was a myth, but now, as she waited for what seemed like minutes for the pressure on the trigger to complete the rotation that would align the cartridge with the barrel, she realized that it was true. Too bad I’ll never be able to tell them they were right, she thought as she waited for the muzzle flash that would signal her death.
     
    Then she heard a deep, slow, drawn out “NO!” Evidently sound was also distorted by the way that time was stretched out. Christie could see the finger on the trigger slowly relax and the cylinder very, very slowly shift back into its original position.
     
    Then time returned to normal and the voice continued clearly, “Not here! Not now! Let’s take her back to the club.”
     
    She recognized that voice... and she recognized the man who was speaking. It was Zed Barlow. Zed had recently taken over leadership of the notorious Ryswell Brothers Motorcycle Club after their previous president died in a shootout with a rival gang.
     
    Zed had changed a lot in the six years they had been apart. Even in the dim light of the setting sun, she could see that he was now leaner... harder... but then he would have to be to lead the Ryswell Brothers.
     
    The man with the revolver protested, saying, “But she’s a cop! She’s ATF. We should fuckin’ drop her right here and leave her for them bastards to find! Maybe next time they won’t send someone out so fast to sneak up on one of our transactions.”
     
    “I don’t think they sent her,” Zed said calmly as he walked up to stand in front of her. “I think she came out here on her own, hoping to show the rest of them what she could do all by herself... to prove that she was the best.”
     
    He looked her in the eyes and said, “Didn’t you, Christie?”
     
    “You know this bitch!?” sputtered the would-be shooter.
     
    “I knew her,” Zed responded flatly. “I knew her a long, long time ago.”
     
    He looked into her eyes. Was it hatred she saw? Or was the fire that she could see burning deep within his soul a reflection of the same fire that he had once shown her, and she for him?
     
    No! Christie said to herself as she felt her body begin to respond to Zed’s closeness. Then she said aloud, “That was a long time ago, Zed. You’ve changed a lot in six years.”
     
    “You haven’t,” he responded curtly. “You still want to prove yourself. You still want to show everyone that you’re better than them. That’s why you left. That’s why you became a cop... to prove that you were better than me... better than us.” His hand made a sweeping