“She told you to what?!” Max choked on his coke.

“Kill her.”

“How did she know our… why did she say…?”

“I don’t know.”

Jamie lifted her empty eyes off her feet and looked into the sky. The sagely white clouds refused to give her an answer. She closed her eyes in resignation, her mind darkened with questions.

“So now what? Are we going ahead with our plans? The goods won’t wait you know,” Max pursued. “They want the money today. If we can’t come up with it by 10pm, there goes everything. Everything we had planned for the past five years.”

Max grabbed Jamie by the shoulders and shook her, his tight grip shouting volumes of his frustration. “What are you going to do now? Are you still with me? You’re not going soft on me now, are you?” he demanded without pity.

Jamie crumbled into a heap on the ground. Her grandmother’s sudden request dealt her steely determination a blow.

Wouldn’t the new turn of events make things easier?

Why is it making a simple procedure such a struggle?