The Desert Standoff

would know your face. I would remember a face such as that one.” Larange smiled and it was easy to see why he is so efficient at what he does. He’s devastatingly handsome in a classic way. The sort of disarming smile that makes him instantly familiar. The sort of comfortable, safe air that he gives off as if he should be worthy of your trust simply by existing. Such rare qualities found in a human man. Even less rare in sane men. Yet, nobody seems to bother remembering that. “Pity to have to dispose of you. I’ve had so much fun observing you over the past few weeks. I wonder if you’ve had as much fun attempting to chase me down. I could leave and we could pretend that your little setup wasn’t such a total and complete failure.”
Arrogant because he thought that he was winning.
Nathan’s hand dipped into his back pocket and he slipped the small blade from his wallet and hurled it at the man with a lethal accuracy. Perhaps if the blade were bigger in any way, it might have done damage. Instead, Larange looked down at the handle now protruding from his abdomen with fury. Whether it was because Nathan had effectively ruined his clothes or some other reason he doesn’t feel like asking.
“You talk too much,” Nathan taunted.
Larange came at him, charging like an enraged bull and didn’t so much as bother attempting to remove or stabilize the blade sticking from him. Nathan dropped low and aimed a punch straight for the handle of that knife in his abdomen, and Larange hissed in pain. He tripped over the top of Nathan’s body and toppled toward the bed, further embedding that small knife further than it should have ever gone. Something that would take a surgeon to remove from him.
Almost as if Larange was incapable of feeling pain, he rose from the bed again. No doubt he’s used to having to fight dirty. His prey are not willing, off-guard creatures. Certainly they might be weakened by some substance or another but any creature in pain wild or domestic will lash out for their life. In his experience, nothing gives up their life easily unless taken fully by surprise and even then that’s not a guarantee. Larange is used to women using tooth and nail and anything around them that they can find to fight for their freedom and he is also used to fighting with them until he wins. A little pain is unlikely to stop him for very long.
He sprang off the bed like nothing happened and the two men, both experienced in hand-to-hand combat, attempted to kill one another. It seemed like a mostly evenly matched fight, right up until Larange threw civility out of the window and pulled the wall sconce lamp right from the wall and used it to bash Nathan over the head.
Nathan can remember waking up and remembering the lack of memory of the night before. Apparently it was just waiting for the right moment to allow itself to be triggered. Now Nathan can remember his face where he couldn’t before. While it would be very irregular for somebody like Spade to simply be admitted into a waiting room such as this one, Nathan might get lucky. He still doesn’t know exactly why Spade left him alive, but he knows that one of them will not be walking out of their next encounter. He cannot allow Spade to live.
Nathan pushes another chip into the pile from the small collection of colored bits of plastic that sit in front of him lazily. For all intents and purposes he looks thoroughly bored and unfazed by the things happening at the table in front of him. He has already memorized the faces of the other men around him.
A door opens to the side of them and a large man in a well-fitted suit enters. There are only two doors to this room, and they both appear to be one way. The one they came in through and the one they are going to exit through. Nathan has already had to bluff his way into this high-paying “suite”. Sure enough, one man collects his chips and heads to the door where the guard is waiting. The man leaving certainly doesn’t want to stay in this dingy room for another second longer than he has to. Nathan doesn't bother watching him leave, neither does he look up whenever a new person comes in. That wouldn’t suit the image that he’s going for. He just needs to take the chips of two more players and then he will move on. He’s almost to the inner level where the live bidding is, he can’t stop before he gets there.

  5 Suzi - High School, Junior Year
“E w, I would hate to be her.” Bethany isn’t the sort of girl Suzi considers to be her friend. She doesn’t think that Bethany really has too many friends. Perhaps that’s why Suzi keeps hanging out with her. She doesn’t want to say that it's a pity so much as she doesn’t feel that anybody should be left alone if somebody can help it. Suzi doesn’t agree or disagree with the girl leaning against the lockers in front of her, her designer bag clutched to her chest with her pile of textbooks. When Suzi first met her, she thought that perhaps nobody else could relate to Bethany simply because she is so wealthy, but having gotten to know her better over the last handful of months Suzi now knows the truth.
“Don’t be mean, B, she’s probably not too thrilled to be here anyway.”
In truth, the whole school has been talking about her as of late. That’s probably the way it goes in any school whenever you transfer this late in the high school system. It must be hell to up and leave everything you’ve ever