QR Code Murders: Praise Break

“I didn’t want to upset you…I…” her him stammered. He and Yawquisha stabbed their forks at truffles and steak tartar.

“I’m not upset,” Yawquisha said evenly and sipped some champagne.

“Then you’re insulted…?”

“No.”

“Tell me what you want me to hear.”

“I’ll tell you that I’m paying for this meal and a semester at NSU for you. You are a value to me and I would just like—”

“And I thank you. I appreciate it all.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Yawquisha had been in this room before. The paisley carpeting in sea green and navy blue complimented the mahogany fixtures around the place. A glow from the bar seemed to give a luminous, welcoming sense that allowed patrons to converse…or end a tiff.

“Look, ‘Quisha. If you want me to not be with you, I don’t have to be. I don’t need the money. You’re the ideal I want to live up to in my life.”

Yawquisha sighed. “I want you to be a bit more invested in not just me but the integration of your ideal with mine. We’re supposed to be a unit. Sometimes I’m the shooter and you’re the spotter, other times, it’s the opposite. No matter where we are in our relationship, let it be with that thought in mind.”

His stomach dropped with his fork. An icininess crept into his mind and didn’t stop. It spread through his circulatory system and his thoughts became a cyclone bomb.

“Are we done?” He asked.

“I’m done with this course. I’m not hungry for dessert, too many carbs anyway,” she reposted.

The iciness turned into heat. The fierce hotness drove him to toss over his glass, knowing that to splash her face would have been an act of supreme evil. He knew that if he were to besmirch her beauty in such a haughty, vicious way, he’d never forgive himself. He raised from his chair like a puppet on strings lifting up and he jostled out of the restaurant.

Yawquisha heard the gasps and murmurs. She just sat and filled out her side of the check and offered his information to pay for his meal.

Kim felt an affinity towards the gun range. Her practice was more than just putting rounds on black, namely the chest and head, but it was a ritual that was close to being an act of faith. Of course she knew no mystical inclinations but when she breathed she felt herself slightly engage a bit more with reality.

This was a much needed act not just for her professional career, but because she knew that her life was a part of this. The life of those she valued in her line of work meant that striking down paper targets was a must. She relaxed. Her aim propelled her to close and to slack.

When she squeezed it was a notion of the divine with the guide of her service pistol as her Lord and Savior. She realized that when the rounds flew, her blood pressure increased and her mind slowed. There was no option for error. Once she executed the firing with her firearm, a sense of spiritualism pervaded her entire being.

It was a lightness that she felt when she drew the target to her face. She hadn’t realized that she fired three times. It was the holy trinity: two to the chest, one to the head.

She almost broke out into a praise break with her shooting skills matching the picture in her mind. Kim could understand the supreme satisfaction that came with making a possible, or shots that hit only in the black.