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and pointed me toward the next room.
    Hawking entered the room less than a minute after us, and our eyes met and held.
    “Mr. Hawking?” I asked , the question clear in my voice. I didn’t say the words, but the need was there. It was as close to begging as I would ever get in my life.
    When he broke eye contact first to look at Buzz, the knot in my stomach grew larger. I didn’t know if he would do it, but he could, and that scared the shit out of me.
    “Are you a hundred percent sure?” he asked Buzz.
    I eyed the distance to the doorway and Buzz repositioned himself in front of it. They knew I’d never get past them. Not alive, anyway. I looked around the room, searching for any possible escape route.
    “Sorry , boss, but I’m a thousand percent.”
    The room fell deadly quiet as Hawking walked toward the wall of windows and all three of us watched his back. I knew my life, or death, was being decided as we waited.
    “I don’t know who you are, or what, but if you kill me, there will be a herd of people coming for you.” Other than the Harvey’s and Lacey, I wasn’t sure anyone would even know I was gone, let alone a bloodthirsty hoard seeking vengeance.
    “If we don’t do it, you know what we’ll have to deal with. Not to mention, it might be kinder this way,” the man named Dodd interjected, sensing the wavering in Hawking.
    “Could my day get any worse?” he said to the room in general.
    “Really? You’re complaining about your day?” I responded.
    Hawking smiled at me, but it was more of the bittersweet variety. “You’ve got a lot of spunk,” he said.
    He turned his back and stared out the window, his body going deathly still, then a burst of motion as he punched a perfect hole through the glass window. I knew my fate had just been sealed, as I looked at the bloodied hole he’d left beh ind. He didn’t say anything, and he wouldn’t look at me, just nodded his head and walked from the room.
    “Sorry, but this is much larger than you,” Dodd said apologetically in my direction.
    “Fuck you,” I replied calmly.
    He didn’t seem fazed at all, just gave me a sad smile, like he regretted this as well, but not enough to save me from the fate I’d just been dealt.
    He shook his head, as he eyed me up and down. “What a waste. Make it quick Buzz.”
    I looked at Buzz and saw the gun he now aimed at my head.
    “You better hope that there isn’t an afterlife because I’ll haunt your every last step.” I refused to cry or grovel. If this was the end, then so be it. I’d lived a tough life, and there was no way I’d spend my last minutes groveling to these assholes.
    The last thing I heard was a gunshot. My last feeling was exploding pain, like nothing I’d ever experienced in my life. And then nothing.

Chapter Five
     
    The crippling pain was the first thing that made me realize I was alive. I refused to believe there were headaches like this in Heaven. Unless I’d ended up at a more southerly locale? Could happen. I had been far from a saint.
    Then I felt Hawking’s couch beneath me. No, I was alive. Did that idiot just graze me? At least they could have given me the courtesy of killing me correctly. The pounding in my head was beyond severe, I didn’t even want to open my eyes, but I couldn’t ignore the shouting that was happening around me.
    “What do you mean she’s alive? What’s the matter with you? You can’t even shoot straight?” Thank you , Dodd. That’s exactly what I would have said to the big dope. “Just shoot her again, you idiot.”
    “You think I didn’t try that? That I’ve been sitting out here whistling Dixie? I shot her five times! She goes dead for about two minutes then the god damn bullets push out of her head.”
    Blessed silence fell over the room, for all of two minutes.
    “Oh, my god, you moron, she’s one of us. She’s a Keeper! Humans don’t spit bullets back out! I gotta go get Cormac. This isn’t good.”
    I wondered what wasn’t