Mr. Samuel Sinclair weighed the heavy revolver in his hand and used his thumb to push the cylinder into the loading position. Only one bullet sat inside. Sinclair clicked the cylinder back in place and looked up towards his current predicament. In front of him were two females chained to their metal stools and a ticking time bomb at the center of the table that they surrounded. A short note was stuck to the bomb.

“Shoot one of the girls and the bomb will defuse itself. Otherwise, you all die. No funny business or I trigger it ;)”

A winking face concluded the note, probably meant to be cheeky. It was absolutely Cicero again, the whole scene reeked of his doing. Sinclair was getting closer to catching him. This was a desperate attempt to scare him off but it wouldn’t work. Not by a long shot.

Sinclair looked back to the bomb. Three minutes and fifty-seven seconds remained, more than enough time to think. Both of the women were gagged but other than that they were completely different in appearance. Holly was on the left and a woman he barely recognized on his right. Little Holly was breathing hard and her soft cheeks burned crimson from tears. Strands of her sweat-soaked blond hair stuck to her neck as she stared back at him intently with her blue eyes. She looked a mess.

Sinclair looked to the woman to his right. She looked even worse than Holly. The woman wore black clothes and had long auburn hair. Mascara was streaming down her face and the top of her head was bleeding from a wound.

The whole situation was like a hypothetical from a shitty philosophy class meant to stir a person’s morals. Sinclair took a deep breath and looked back towards Holly. The situation basically forced the person to determine what they value in a human life. He had to kill one of them, it only made sense that he picks the one that held less value to him. He could pick at random to try and curb guilt, but that was not the kind of person he was. He would make a decision and live with the consequences whatever they were. The philosophical discussion at its core was pretty common but was usually presented as the “who would you save from a fire” situation.

Holly whimpered in fear, drawing Sinclair back to the present. He pointed the gun at the other black-clad woman. She shifted and wriggled, assumedly in fear of death.

Most people, if given no other information, would save the person who was the youngest, rationalizing that they have had the least amount of time to live and deserve to live more because of it. If working under that logic Holly would win this little game. She was halfway through her eleventh year while this other woman looked to be in her mid-twenties. However, you could use age as a polar opposite argument as well. Someone who is as old as this mystery woman is probably for the most part set in who she is, while Holly on the other hand still has yet to determine her true self. Holly is still a relatively blank slate. She could grow up to be a monster and therefore she shouldn’t survive, but Sinclair supposed it was just as likely for her to be a constructive human being as well. Therefore, causing that argument to be rendered useless. Sinclair clicked his teeth in annoyance. Also, that last argument dips more into weighing someone’s value by their moral standing rather than their particular age.

Thinking of such things Sinclair looked down to the other woman’s arms. As he scrutinized her body she shuddered. In the fold of her arm, there were bruises and small injection points. A fucking junkie. He despised junkies. Holly definitely won in the morality field too. Sinclair clicked back the hammer of the revolver getting it ready to fire. The auburn-haired woman that he was pointing at closed her eyes. Sinclair would give her a moment to say her prayers if she believed in such things. He looked at the bomb, to see two minutes on the clock. It did not really matter though for he had made his decision. Holly began breathing faster and faster in horror. Her blue eyes darted between Samuel and his victim. The auburn-haired woman gulped and opened her eyes again in acceptance. Sinclair was impressed, she was brave. She must have come to the same conclusion that he had. The deck was stacked against the woman, unfortunately. A small, cute, innocent girl against a goth junkie. It was no competition.

What was he supposed to say in a situation like this? Would “Sorry” be the appropriate thing to say, despite it being untruthful. He was not sorry for her passing.

So instead Samuel Sinclair said what came to mind, “Rest easy now,” before whipping the gun around and shooting Holly through the top of the head.

-------------------------------------------------------

The detective looked at the scene in stoic sadness. It must have been another fucked up game between Cicero and one of his playthings. The explosive had already been removed by the bomb squad and the woman taken for treatment and questioning. The timer for the bomb had been stuck on a minute and sixteen seconds. All that remained now was the empty table and the corpse of the little girl still chained to the metal stool. Blood was still trickling down her face.

“Sir?” said a hesitant voice behind him.

“Yes?” said the detective.

“We have a positive ID on the girl.”

“Alright, spill it,” said the detective impatiently.

“Her name is Holly Sinclair…”

-------------------------------------------

Samuel Sinclair threw the revolver in the dumpster. What a waste, eleven and a half years of food, money, and fabricated love, all wasted because of Cicero’s stupid little games. Sinclair would find the little bastard, and make him pay for taking his possessions from him. The freak had made it personal now. Sinclair twisted his gloved hand and popped his knuckles. The hunt was on.