The Ties That Bind Us

CHAPTER 21: Scare

How could she not have seen this coming? The last mob to have taken over the drug trading operations in the neighborhood had been Eiko's family. They had been killed over gang disputes during the occupation, but she could've connected the dots. If she had done so, they wouldn't have gone there so clueless and unprepared. She wouldn't have let Bruce go alone.

"I am not joking, Selina!", Eiko yelled exasperated after having shot the ceiling.

The bullet had rebounded and hit some computer screens and both Bruce and Selina crouched down to protect themselves. Eiko was very close to losing it and Selina took the opportunity to get closer to her.

"Selina," Bruce warned her quietly.

She ignored him and lifted her hands up in front of her, as if she was trying to approach a wild animal.

"Eiko, listen to me..."

"No! Put your gun down or I'll shoot him right now! Stop messing with me!", she cried out. "Oh my God... I killed those people. I killed them... all those people... look what you've done to me!", she yelled, momentarily retracting the gun from aiming at Bruce to smack her head a couple times with it.

Selina flinched, noticing the safety lock wasn't activated. She'd put her own gun down on the floor as requested and was feeling even more vulnerable.

"Eiko, please," she begged when the woman put him at gunpoint again. "Give me the gun and we can talk this through, okay? I'll do whatever you want, just hand it over, please."

"Don't you see, Selina? There's nothing you can do anymore. I screwed up everything now," she wailed.

"I can help you. We'll fix things together, I promise," Selina said calmly, carefully taking one more step towards her but stopping when her trigger finger tensed up.

"You keep saying that, but we were together for almost a year and never once I caught you on a lie. You're that good, I bet that hasn't changed," she snapped.

Selina was starting to get desperate as she realized there wasn't much more she could do, especially when they were unarmed and being held at gunpoint by someone having a mental breakdown. She hadn't been able to change Eiko's focus to her and seeing Bruce in the direction of the barrel of that gun was wearing her composure and rationality down.

"Why do you keep glancing over to him?", Eiko shouted madly. "Huh? I thought you said he was just a tool, so why do you look so concerned?"

"I'm not, Eiko..."

"He'll never love you like I do! Like I did! I would've done anything for you... I've killed for you! So why?! Why is he different?", she yelled wiggling the gun at him.

Selina knew she had stopped being any kind of convincing for a while now, and so she let her fear take over her completely and she yelled back, desperately and with tears accumulating in her eyes, "He's not, Eiko! He's not! I promise, he..."

"Then you won't mind me doing this," she said coldly as she pulled the trigger.

Selina only had time to process her reaction after the word came screaming deafeningly out of her mouth, "NO!"

Bruce hit the floor flopping and grunted in pain. She couldn't see where the bullet had hit him from where she stood, and she was already promptly on her way to run to him when she heard Eiko recharging the gun. She only glanced at her out of instinct, but stopped unwillingly when she saw it was pointed at her. She quickly considered her options. She could run to Bruce and be killed midway and have him bleed out there with nothing to do, or she could try once more to get to her.