Page 113 of Secret Squirrel

“Yeah,” Fox laughed. “It’s the funniest thing…my key isn’t working. Can you help me out?”

The guard eyed him warily, but stepped inside. Fox eyed me, narrowing his eyes at the man. I shook my head behind the guard, refusing to do as he asked.

“Where’s the key?” the guard asked.

“Key? What key?”

He slammed his fist into the guy’s throat and caught him as his knees crumpled.

“Jesus, Fox!” I shouted. “What the fuck?”

“Did you want to get the elevator—”

“Why didn’t you use the tranq gun?”

“You told me not to,” he sighed.

“So you throat-punched him instead?”

“Yes, but I did it kindly.”

I stared at him incredulously. “In what way?”

“Well…I had good intentions.”

“That’s not a thing!”

“Are you sure? Because I think there’s technically a good throat-punch. Are you gonna get the door, or did you want to wait for another guard to come over?”

I hit the button for the elevator to close, not wanting anyone else to see what Fox had done. But only because if they caught Fox, I would go down as well. I stepped back and knelt down beside the guard who was still struggling for breath. As soon as he was breathing normally again, I’d find a way to get him help without him ratting us out.

“I can’t believe you did that.”

“Hey, this is on you. I tried to do it the nice way.”

I stood and glared at him as he hit the button for the top floor. “Again, why don’t you explain to me how this is the nice way. Like, is there a nice way to murder someone? Is there a nice way to rape someone?”

Fox thought about it for a moment. “Well, if we’re going to be technical about it, I would say yes. See, if I give someone a slow death by, say, boiling them in acid, that’s a very mean way to kill someone. But if I break someone’s neck and they die instantly, I gave them a nice death. As for the rape, that’s just silly. Why would you even ask that?”

“Right,” I nodded. “I’m the silly one.”

He shoved the guard’s legs to the back and stepped over him, looking down at his shirt as he did so. “What is this?” he snapped.

“What?”

“My shirt!” He sighed, lifting his head to the ceiling. “What else can go wrong today?”

“What happened?”

He spun and stuck his finger through the hole in his shirt. “Do you see this? This is what happens when you do things the hard way. All of this,” he motioned to the elevator, “is to protect your self-proclaimed righteousness. If we had done it my way, I wouldn’t even have a dirt smudge on my shirt. Which I don’t now, but I’m doing this in varying degrees of how bad this is.”

“You have a dirt smudge right there,” I pointed to his shoulder.

He pulled his shirt out so he could see, then spun and kicked the elevator wall. “Oh, man! Come on! Why are you doing this to me?” he shouted. “Why do you have to make my day so difficult?”

I pointed to the man on the ground, still struggling to breathe. “Yeah, your day is bad.”

“Hey,” he snapped, pointing at the man. “This is what happens when you try to be the nice guy. From now on, we’re doing things my way.”

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