"Please... just put the gun down," Jared pleaded, his voice jagged and desperate. “We can talk about this. We can work something out."

He was so close, yet so far from Myla. His hands were trembling so violently that he could barely keep his balance. She was on the ground a few feet away, frozen, her breath coming in shallow, uneven gasps. Jared was a man who had survived the horrors of war. He had been a prisoner of war, enduring days of starvation and torture in a damp, dark cell. He had ...