“Have you ever used a gun before Thom?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so.”

She was about to tell him the safety was still on, to show she wasn’t afraid of him, when he beat her to the punchline and took it off. The danger of the situation needed to be reassessed from her perspective.

Thom didn’t know what he was doing, or to put it more accurately, Thom was starting to experience a sense of knowing what to do, but had no idea why. He had an instinctive feel for controlling the gun. He believed he could kill this woman if he had to, but knew that there was no reason to rush to that outcome. She had information he needed.

“You better start explaining all of this to me or I am going to shoot you in the head.”

The petit woman looked convinced.

“How much do you know about your parents?”
“My parents? They worked for the military in some capacity. We moved around a lot. They died in a car crash two years ago. How much do you know about my parents?”
“Your parents didn’t work for the military, they worked for us.”