Frantic Thoughts With Fanatic

Bullseyes & Betrayals

**if you get the reference, you get it!**

The sound of the gunshot was deafening in her ears. All she could see was red. Red blooming across her partners ugly plaid shirt. Red seeping from the bullet wound in his chest. Red staining her hands in a way that would never wash off. She lowered the gun. She had shot him. She shot her partner, the one shed been through hell with on half a decades worth of life-or-death missions. Who had saved her life and whom she had saved in return on countless occasions, now it was her who had put a bullet through him with the intention of taking his.

She told herself it was necessary, there was no other way, her resolve was steel, and now he sat tied to a chair, motionless except for the rapidly growing stain. What an ugly shirt, she was happy to see it gone. She would miss his smile though, and his laughter, and his jokes were tolerable.

Sorry, Rockwell, but like I told you; I always win. When they had started their main mission four years ago, neither of them would have expected it to end like this, for it to be so close and then for them to split up and in such a permanent way too. This part of the mission? He definitely got the rawer end of the deal. It was necessary, she reminded herself, ice frosting over that little part of her conscience that felt guilty. It was necessary.

Her pristine footsteps echoed as she approached his prone body, avoiding looking at his face as she felt for a pulse against his neck and breath under his nose, any sign of life really. When she got the answer she was looking for, she threw out a dismissive, throw him in the river.

***

Eight points! Rockwell called loud enough to hear through the noise-muffling headphones. Sam shot him a dirty look through the bulletproof glass divider, what a showoff. She hit the safety on her gun, squared her shoulders, set her feet, took a breath in slowly and released it as she pulled the trigger. The bullet shot from the barrel, the kickback a familiar sensation to her joints, the boom rattling as it forced the air to split. It struck the center of the target with perfect accuracy.

Ten points. Sam smirked at Rockwell. Grumbling, he pulled the trigger three times in a row, hitting two more eights and a ten. Not to be outdone, she turned her attention back to the target, aimed, and pulled the trigger until the clip was empty.

Sam waited until he had finished with his clip before taking off her safety glasses and earmuffs. He did the same while moving his jaw up and down like he was chewing gum, probably popping his ears. That was good, he remarked. Sam snorted at the implication of being any less than that and hit the button that would retrieve the paper target.

It sailed back along the wire and came to a stop right in front of her booth. Four tens, two eights—just barely—they were hardly grazing the line between a ten and an eight, anyone else would have counted them as tens. It was the difference of a few millimeters, but as soon as it was no longer in the circle, it ceased to count, those were the rules of partner duo Sam Conway and Dallas Rockwell, the agents no one wanted to work with because of their rather extreme tendencies. You won again, he grumbled halfheartedly, probably expecting it. To be fair, there was a reason that Sams callsign was Ace.

Putting the safety back on, Sam reloaded the clip and slipped it back into the holster at her hip. I always win, she stated, it was a fact not in dispute. Sam replaced the target and returned the safety gear to the rangemaster. They always had a marksmanship competition right before a mission, a practice of sorts, but—for Sam—this practice had far more riding on it than any of the previous ones combined. A life was at stake, one important to her, she couldnt afford to be any less than perfect. Her stomach twisted at the thought. Failure was not an option. As she left, she called back over her shoulder, wheels out in twenty.