Revenge is cold, but the truth waiting in the dark is colder.
Writer’s Prompt
Sean didn’t tap his fingers against the steering wheel. Rattlesnakes don’t fidget. Through the phosphor-green haze of his night-vision goggles, the brick alley beside Kelly’s Irish Pub looked like the bottom of an abandoned swimming pool. Murky, quiet, and ripe for drowning.
Steam hissed from a grease trap vent. Then the rusted metal door groaned open.
Tim Ryan stepped out into the drizzling neon glow. Slender shoulders, cheap leather jacket, a nervous cockiness that lived only in the mouth. For three weeks, Ryan had bragged in every dive south of the canal that he was the trigger that put Detective Miller six feet under.
Sean slipped the glove compartment open. The Glock was cold against his palm—unregistered, scrubbed clean, no badge attached to the serial number. Tonight was the final exam, and Ryan was marked to fail.
Sean exited the Honda without a sound. He closed the distance along the wall, his boots sliding through slick tavern runoff. Ten paces. Five.
He raised the muzzle, pressing the steel into the crook beneath Ryan’s jaw.
Ryan froze, breath hitching into a sharp whine.
“Don’t twitch,” Sean whispered, voice level, devoid of pulse. “You talk a big game about Miller, kid.”
Instead of crying or fighting, Ryan’s posture collapsed inward. Tears cut clean lines through street grime on his cheeks. His hand trembled toward his inner coat pocket, pulling out not a weapon, but a battered digital recorder wrapped in Miller’s own bloodstained precinct lanyard.
“I didn’t shoot him,” Ryan choked out, terror stripping the swagger bare. “They made me say it so they wouldn’t kill my sister. Miller gave me this before he bled out. It’s got the real shooter’s name on it… Loughran, it’s someone on your squad.”
Choose the Ending
How does this confrontation resolve? Take the pen and decide Sean’s next move:
- Direction A (The Vengeance Route): Sean decides Ryan is spinning a desperate lie to save his own skin. He pulls the trigger, choosing cold certainty over an impossible claim—only to press play on the recorder afterward and recognize his captain’s voice.
- Direction B (The Conspiratorial Route): Sean lowers the hammer, pockets the recorder, and forces Ryan into the passenger seat. Together, they disappear into the city night to hunt the dirty badges who set them both up.
The final scene belongs to you. Which path does Loughran take?