The handle was cold to his palm. Cold like iron and frost. His head hurt, and sweat rolled off his temples. The room was hot, real hot. How else was he going to get out of this… if he got out. His eyes hurt, and he missed her. She wasn’t coming back though, he couldn’t make her come back. He wasn’t trying he guessed though. He looked at the gun. Jesus, it had power. A gun gives it’s owner so much power. He, right now, had a life and death choice. The sheer impact of it hit him then. The idea that when someone is killed, that’s it, they may live on somewhere else, but that they would not live to see another memory. Memories, these could be the last of his, what few he had, and wanted to keep. He remembered the cornfields back home, and remembered getting lost in the draw behind the old house hunting small game with his 22. He remembered smoking Marlboro lights with the neighbor boy and driving the back roads, counting the time in beers and watching the snakes go by in the hot sun. But, trouble had always found him it seemed. When he was young, just little things, but as men get bigger, money gets bigger and so do the consequences involved in handling things that other people don’t want you handling. This was it he guessed though. He felt his hand steady, and he lifted his eyes.