The bright lights inside seemed to dim the longer I screamed. When they went bright again, I was sitting on the floor bent over holding my left foot with both hands. Blood coated my hands and clothes. I had turned my foot slightly so I could see it when I felt the nudge of a cold gun barrel at the back of my head.

I froze, my foot still held at a painful angle. I couldn't see the gunman behind me. 'Oh God, that scared priest called the police.' I was nudged again as I heard him pull the hammer back. "Father?" I asked, closing my eyes tight against the pain and fear.

"I'm not your father," said a female voice in an accent.

I turned my head slowly to the right until she came into view. She was Asian, perhaps as young as me and very beautiful. Her small brown almond eyes penetrated like those of a stalking feline. She wore a black silk robe with two scenes of mountain brooks embroidered in gold thread that ran down from her shoulders and over her breasts before joining at her waist and continuing down one side to the bottom. The robe was loose fitting and the bottoms overlapped slightly below the waist, exposing the soft tan skin of her bare legs from the inside of her upper thighs out over her knees to her small feet which were wrapped in white cloth laced wooden sandals. Her hair looked long, even pulled up as it was. She looked like she could have come from feudal Japan except for the large caliber black revolver in her small hand.

"Start talking," she commanded coldly.

I obeyed and opened my mouth, but realized I hadn't thought up anything to say.

"Now!" she shouted, shaking the gun barrel in my face.

"I... I've been shot," I said meekly.

"I can see that, who shot you?"

I clicked through several options in my head. "These guys drove by and shot me," I said looking down at her feet. I felt the dizziness coming on again.

"I don't believe you. I saw the police searching for you in the alley." She took two steps back and continued. "You know what I think happened? I think you are on the run, a fugitive from justice. I think you were shot by the police and then broke in here, where you were shot and killed as a burglar. That's what I think happened."