Dopp’s gaze darted from the screen back to Arianna’s ashen face and then to the strange man and woman behind her. The man was sitting down, eye level with Arianna’s lower back, but Dopp could not see what he was doing. Next to the man, a frightened-looking woman stood holding a plastic bag of murky fluid that was hanging from a tube dangling from a pole. The tube was connected to a needle that disappeared behind Arianna’s body, into her back, right where the man was focused. But now his face popped up over Arianna’s waist, lips parted dumbly, and he was gaping at Dopp as if he were a monster only imagined, never expected to appear in the flesh.
Dopp looked to the left, and there was the traitor himself, standing next to an older, white-haired man who showed no fear; rather, sharp grooves cut his forehead and his eyes scrunched into slits amid a maroon flush of rage. Trent’s face had drained in comparison.
“How could you?” Dopp roared, feeling power in the blast of his own voice. “You knew this the whole time and you let it happen! You helped it happen!” Dopp instinctively lifted his gun, knowing he was in a room of killers.
Trent’s lips moved, but his face remained stricken. “Put the gun down,” he commanded; his tone was an attempt at calm, hinging on urgency. “Put the gun down, boss,” he repeated. “You don’t need the gun.”
Dopp let out a little gasp, lifting the gun higher, point-blank with Trent’s chest.
“Put your hands up right now,” he growled. “You’re under arrest.”
Trent obeyed, stepping backwards, slack jawed.
“Stand still!” Dopp shouted. He turned to the old man. “Hands up! You are all under arrest! You’re all killers!”
The older man pursed his lips as if he were about to spit.
“Just do it, Sam,” Trent implored.
“Aha,” Dopp said. “So you’re Sam, the author of this little gem.” Still keeping his gun aimed, Dopp pulled the crumpled ball out of his shirt pocket. For the first time, the old man’s eyes shone with terror. He raised his arms.
Dopp smirked and tossed the letter onto the floor, near Sam’s feet. Sam bent down to snatch it up. “Stay still!” Dopp shouted, returning both hands to his gun. “Keep your hands up!”
Dopp turned to face the doctor whose hands were buried behind Arianna’s back. “Hands up where I can see them!”
The man shook his head. “I can’t—I can’t move them!”
“You can’t?”
“Please, sir, I can’t take my hands off the needle or it will fall out. We’re almost done, look.” He nodded toward the plastic bag that the woman next to him was holding. It was almost fully drained, and she was squeezing it ever so gently.
“It’s almost done,” the woman pleaded.
“Both of you put your hands up right now,” Dopp snarled, feeling the smooth trigger of the gun under his forefinger, cocking it in their direction.
“Please don’t hurt them!” Arianna moaned from the table. The machine next to her was beeping wildly. “They’re just helping me get the cells!”
The cells.
Dopp looked harder at the plastic bag, and then recoiled. He bristled, and his hands shook as he swung the gun toward her, the ringleader, the Devil incarnate.
“No!” came a man’s shout off from the left side. “Stop!”
But Dopp was already narrowing his eyes down the gun’s slick barrel, looking straight at Arianna’s chest. Another voice shrieked, and then all of them were shouting together, a chorus of manically pitching voices. Dopp’s finger dwelt on the trigger, sliding down a ravine of its own sweat; he eyed the goal, the heartless heart that in her was nothing but a muscle.
Then he heard a savage voice roar above the rest. In his peripheral vision, he saw two bursts of flesh charging at him from the left side, and his finger knew before his mind did, knew he could not wait a moment longer before squeezing the trigger.
* * *
The sound of the shot echoed in Trent’s ears as he lunged forward, arms splayed, feet off the ground, suspended in the air a moment too late. Never had he acted so decisively, with no fear of man or God, no moment’s hesitation, only the split-second knowledge that his own judgment was all that mattered and all that ever had.
Amid the blur of screams around him, he smashed into Dopp with the full force of his body’s momentum and they crashed blindly to the floor. He landed on top of Dopp’s chest, opening his eyes just in time to see the gun fly away from their bodies and skid across the floor, just out of range. Dopp writhed underneath him, reaching for it, but Trent drew back his fist and punched him in the face with an involuntary cry, and then again, harder, pummeling him with a degree of rage he had never before felt.
Dopp groaned as his squirming ceased. Still straddling him, Trent reached for the gun, stretching his arm as far as possible, leaning toward it, until he was able to pinch it with two fingers. He brought it firmly into his grip and turned back to face Dopp. Blood streamed from Dopp’s nose, and he was coughing and gasping between breaths. His eyes widened at the gun in Trent’s hands.
“You want me to die?” he choked out.
Trent’s lip curled up in disgust. “It’s either you or me.”
Then he slid backwards on Dopp’s stomach, knowing that what he was about to do wasn’t so much a choice, but a forced action in defense of his own—and the others’—survival. Tightening his grip on
