One Shot, One Kill Rated: T/ PG-13
Title: One Shot, One Kill
Author: outdoorluvr54 aka SAR132-4 on FanFiction.net
Characters: Ed Lane
Word Count: 400 words
Prompt: #4 Regret, #5 Trigger
Rating: T for teen.
Warnings: Character death, slight violence.
Spoilers: None
Summary: "One shot, that's all it took."
Disclaimer: I own nothing pertaining to CBS or Flashpoint
Author's notes: I don't know what got into me . . . written for - flashpoint_sru - deviated from my original FanFiction post because I'm anal about getting it to exactly 400 words. Ironically, I'm listening to Pearl Jam's song Jeremy whilst posting this.
One shot, that's all it took.
One shot, one kill. It was the unofficial creed of the sniper, driven into his brain since the days at the police academy.
He had passed all marksmanship classes, every single one of them.
So how could this have happened? How could an innocent mother be lying on the ground in her own puddle of blood?
The situation was under control, the winds were nearly dead calm, Ed could have shot that man that was holding her hostage. Cold zero, he had the solution, it was a pretty damn clear shot too.
When Boss had given the order to shoot, Ed squeezed the trigger, enjoying the slight thrill in his nerves as the rifle shot echoed in his ears. Then suddenly, that thrill turned to dread as he heard his team mates scream in his ears.
"Hostage down! Hostage down!" Wordy had shouted as he rushed towards the fallen woman, knowing that a bullet to the head was almost always fatal. The subject, was also on the ground, his eyes glazing over as he had taken his last breath.
"Eddie!" Greg had shouted, "Talk to me."
"I dunno what happened Boss. She wasn't in my line of fire, I swear," Ed had repeated over and over again in shock.
"Looks like the subject pulled the hostage in front of him at the last minute Sarge," Jules's voice, almost devoid of emotion except for a slight edge, had cut in, "Ed, there was no way we would have known."
Unfortunately the SIU didn't think that, Ed was on suspension, criminal charges filed by the family and the city were pending. The hero became the pariah.
He sat in the locker room, the cold radiating off metal of the lockers and chilling him to the bone. He thought over that academy saying, "One shot, one kill."
One shot, one death of an innocent mother who wanted nothing more than to go shopping for her family, not even aware of the subject, or the incompetent SRU sniper who didn't see the man pull the mother in front of him. What if that had been his wife?
He reached in his locker for his service weapon, not yet confiscated by the SIU, and placed the barrel inside his mouth and closed his eyes.
One shot. One kill.
A lone shot echoed through the empty halls of the SRU.