payne

She was the kind of girl you could point a loaded gun at, tell her to "Kiss me and this life good-bye," and she would.

She knew how to drive her points in a conversation home, like knowing just where to do a palm strike to the nose, sending your cartilage deep into your frontal lobe, a macabre frontal labotomy.

My trigger finger would shake, and she would smile, pouring on the romantic syrup to stick to my heart and hand. How could I pull the trigger on her like this?

All I wanted was my dead wife and baby girl back, and instead, I'm standing in a dark alleyway, groping and making out with this 50. caliber princess.

How can two cocked locked pistols ever not fire upon each other? Friendly fire...plays like civil war....like military intelligence....

I want to shake her off, push her away and empty my last two remaining bullets into her, to let her die clean before she sullies herself with my pathetic issues and addiction to pain killers that make killing painful instead of killing the pain.

I looked at her one last time, her head resting on my shoulder. I pressed my gun to her left temple....

My wife and baby girl were dead....and it was okay...