The Border Part Seven by Amy Cross

doing?” Bob asked, shuffling on his knees so that he was still facing his kidnapper.
    “Just stay still,” Luke replied, still circling him.
    “Why? Why are you trying to get behind me?”
    “Will you just stay still?”
    “No come on, please,” Bob stammered, reaching into his pocket and taking out his wallet. With trembling fingers, he starting rooting through the contents, before pausing. “If I had my phone,” he said after a moment, “I could show you a photo of my daughter. She’s so young and so beautiful, and she deserves to grow up with a father.”
    “Your wife will remarry, maybe.”
    “No!” Bob shouted. “I’m Lucy’s father and I have to be there for her!”
    “Toss me the wallet.”
    “Please -”
    “Toss me the wallet or I shoot it out of your hands, along with your fingers.”
    Bob paused, before throwing the wallet at Luke’s feet. Reaching down and picking it up, Luke turned it over in his hands for a moment and then threw it over his shoulder and started once again to walk around Bob.
    “Stop doing that!” Bob shouted.
    “No.”
    “I don’t like when you go behind me!”
    “Shut up!” Luke hissed, stepping toward him and grabbing Bob’s shoulder, spinning him around and then forcing him face-first down against the ground. “I’ve had enough of your whining already. Jesus, I can’t imagine what it must be like to be married to a man like you. There’s just something about you that’s pathetic and worm-like, it’s as if you radiate inadequacy and duplicity from every pore in your body.”
    “Please,” Bob sobbed, his face pressed against the dirty ground, “let me go. Tell me why you’re doing this.”
    “Why I’m doing this?” Luke paused, before placing his heel against Bob’s cheek and pushing has face harder. “I’m doing this because the wheels of the universe, the hidden gears that regulate right and wrong, have finally turned and are ready to punish you, Mr. Bob Hague. I’m here because you ruin lives, not in big, grand ways, but by a thousand cuts. I’m here because this, in truth, is how the world really works.” He paused, aiming the gun at Bob’s head. “I’m here because we now live in a world in which weak, stupid men are kept alive by a system designed by other weak and stupid men to support their own kind. It’s natural selection, Mr. Hague. You are going to die now. If you have any last words, speak them quickly.”
    “Please let me go,” Bob whimpered. “I’ll do anything.”
    Smiling, Luke adjusted his grip on the gun and prepared to fire.
    “Stop!” a voice shouted in the distance.
    Luke turned and saw two figures racing across the dirt, with a car parked over by the road. “Oh hell,” he muttered, as he realized that he recognized the closest of the figures. “No, this is ridiculous…”
    “Stop!” Beth shouted again, reaching them quickly and dropping to her knees, pushing the gun away from Bob’s head. “Don’t shoot him! Please don’t shoot him!”
    “Mrs. Hague, I told you -”
    “Don’t shoot him,” she said again, with tears in her eyes as she reached out and put a hand on Luke’s right hand, forcing the gun toward the dirt. “It’s off, I’m calling it off, it was all a terrible mistake!”
    “You can’t just turn up like this,” Luke replied, turning as Ben edged closer. Raising the gun, he aimed straight at Ben’s face. “Who the hell are -”
    “No!” Beth shouted, lunging at Luke and knocking him down. The gun fired once, hitting the wall of the abandoned gas station and ricocheting off one of the old gas pumps, but Beth quickly reached down and bit Luke’s wrist, forcing him to let go of the weapon with a yelp of pain. Scrambling for a moment, Beth pushed the gun aside and then rolled away.
    “Well this is a hell of a mess,” Ben muttered, reaching down and taking the gun.
    “That’s mine!” Luke shouted, trying to grab the gun.
    Ben took a step back and aimed the weapon at his face. “Is