The Desert Standoff

can.
Then she does it again until her fingers are shaking with the effort.
Not so much as a stir.
Not so much as a gust of breath coming from her lips to move the pretty hair covering Suzi’s face.

  4 Nathan
 
N ever in his life has he ever wanted to kill a person more.
Gaining access to the black trade market in Las Vegas actually proved to be far simpler than he thought that it would be. Perhaps it was something about his perfectly average face that just made people want to trust him more than they rationally ought to be able to, or perhaps it was the no-nonsense air that Nathan gives off. Perhaps he just asks all of the right questions but here he sits.
He is seated at a poker table covered in worn red felt. The leg nearest his left foot seems to be propped up by a stack of folded cardboard pieces to ensure that the table is kept level. The room seems to be in a state of disarray that no amount of product would ever get clean. No doubt the level of bodily fluids and other biohazardous material that might be found under the flood could be shocking to most. Nathan knows this, and still he sits. He knows that he will recognize Spade whenever he sees him. He still thinks that Larange’s little pseudonym is pretentious and insane. No doubt the egomaniac gave it to himself.
Every single person at this table deserves to be gutted, their organs removed from their bodies and left to rot on the table in front of them. Every single one of them should be on the company’s radar. It is the absolute least that they deserve. Yet, here Nathan still sits, pretending to be one of them. It’s rather shocking how people who are wearing clothes that are worth more money than he can even properly fathom can just sit here and glare at one another as if they aren’t all sitting in the same terribly filthy room. As if they aren’t all about to be shown into auction booths where their intention is strictly to purchase young women and use them for their own sick, sadistic desires. Nathan is having great difficulty keeping himself in line. He has been asked to deal with a great many terrible people in his line of work and he has done it, all while perfectly maintaining the guise and false identity that he is supposed to be. He has done this perfectly for years, though none of those cases are even a fraction as personal as this one.
Last night, Nathan lay awake in his hotel room. He stared at the ceiling for such a long time he couldn’t even properly focus his eyes if he wanted to. He couldn’t sleep. Memories that he either repressed or was fully blocked from him started to assault him. He was brought to remember what must have happened that night. He had followed Larange to the hotel one night. The infamous Spade knew that he was being watched. He wouldn’t be any good at his job at all if he wasn’t a careful bastard. For somebody who was so very good at evading the police, Nathan could remember remarking to himself just how very simple it had been to find him, even more so to track him down. Blame it on how green he was at the time perhaps, but now Nathan knows that Larange must have been luring him in. Taunting him. Leaving him a trail. When Nathan tracked him down to that hotel, he had a poor girl all trussed up and unconscious on the bed. Nathan should have checked the room more thoroughly, but he had seen Larange leave just a handful of moments before. Nathan’s intention had been simply to gather intel and release the girl. He had thought that Larange coming back to find that the girl was missing would be a big enough message that somebody was on to him. That he needed to stop. Naturally, the warning would be more of a precursor, but that wasn’t the focus.
The trap that was meant for Larange ended up being a trap for himself.
Larange had never left the room at all.
He had been waiting for Nathan the entire time. Nathan could still remember the anger that boiled hot in his body when he realized that not only was the girl on the bed already dead, his exit through the door was now blocked by the body of a smirking Larange. He was obviously pleased with himself for having executed his trap so perfectly. Nathan isn’t much of a gun man. He never has been. While he is ranked as a sharpshooter in training, and he knows that he has deadly accuracy, it just isn’t something that he prefers. He knows the weight of taking a human life. Any human life. Even a monster such as this one. He knows how that changes a person and he needs to feel the weight of their life leaving their body. He carries it with him, so when he came here to lay this trap for Larange, he didn’t bother with a gun. Never mind that they are too loud for such close quarters anyway.
Larange had been so smug, so self-satisfied as he walked closer to Nathan. Like a spider admiring his prey.
“You’re not police…” Larange said.
Nathan said nothing. He merely stared at him.
“You’re not a private investigator either ... that’s far too clunky. FBI agents always have this sort of smell to them.” Larange motioned as if he was wafting something toward his face and then found it repugnant. “So then, none of the main players. Perhaps you’re a heartbroken boyfriend? A slighted ex-client?” Larange continued, tapping his chin in thought as if this were a puzzle that he couldn’t wait to unravel. “Perhaps not. I