31 Day Writing Challenge: Day 7 - 'Lost Keys'

It all started with a set of keys and now her life had ended with them. She had been clutching them so tightly that there were now crescent-shaped wounds from fingernails digging into palm marring her hand. He knelt down and tore the keys from her lifeless hand. She wasn't fighting anymore. Who would have thought this meager, clumsy, pathetic girl could cause him so much trouble. All because of something he could never have anticipated: her compassion.

He had hunted her, threatened her and caused her both physical and emotional harm, yet this girl, this unassuming, wallflower of a girl, and not one of his many allies and henchmen, was the one who laid her life on the line to save his. All because she realised his maliciousness wasn't about her, it was about the keys; because she didn't think anyone should or needed to die; because, no matter what he did, she had too much warmth and compassion in her heart to wish her tormentor dead. He had not seen that coming. 

This girl was never part of the plan. She wasn't supposed to be involved. They were supposed to send Anthony Barker, a trained professional, not this defenseless girl with no clue what she was doing. Barker was the one that had been tracking him, the one that he had some kind of near-death, back-and-forth repartee with for years. But now, when everything he had worked for, when everything he had ever wanted or cared for, was on the line, they send this...child. Why wouldn't she just give him the keys? She had no reason to give up her life to protect them, she didn't even know what they were for. What was it she said when he had her cornered, when he ordered her to give him the keys? Tears streaming down her face, her body language screaming 'panic'.

"No, I can't. I have to protect you."