Heavier.
The man sees it. Something in him shifts.
His shoulders tighten against the restraints, his breathing changing, faster now, less controlled, his eyes flicking between my face and the weapon like he’s trying to find something in me that isn’t there.
“Wait—”
The word lands in the space between us, thin, unstable. I don’t move yet.
My thumb rests along the side of the grip, my finger not quite on the trigger, not quite away from it either.
I can feel the difference.
With the knife, there’s resistance. There’s force. You push, you feel it give, you feel the body react to you.
This...this doesn’t ask for anything.
Just a decision. The distance between us is nothing. A step. I don’t need to get closer. I don’t need to touch him again. I don’t need to hear him.
His mouth is still moving.
Words spilling over each other now, faster, losing shape.
“—I don’t know anything, I told you, I don’t—”
The video flickers behind my eyes again.
Her hair.
That hand.
The way it moved like it belonged there.
My finger settles.
The hesitation, if it was that, doesn’t stretch.
It doesn’t build.
I pull the trigger.
The sound splits the space cleanly, louder than anything else has been, sharp enough to echo off the walls and come back again before it dies.
The recoil is quick.
Controlled.
Gone almost as soon as it registers.
He goes still.
The noise leaves the room.
Everything drops with it.
I stand there for a second, the gun still in my hand, the weight of it unchanged, the shape of it the same as it was before I used it.
I lower the gun.
