Nano Prologue - Take 2

I think I have it now...or nearly. How's this Prologue segment?

Autumn, 2000
Somewhere in England

Dead. How can they all be dead?

Dean was dead, and the target, and the...

Lacey couldn't think of it. She couldn't stop thinking of it. She was the only one alive here in her little world gone mad. Lacey and the police, of course. They'd already arrived and were smothering the scene in front of her. They'd see her if she moved, but she wouldn't move, wasn't even thinking of moving.

Lacey Townsend lay absolutely still in her cocoon of leaves and bugs and cold, worm-ridden soil, just trying to breathe and take it all in. She was safe here, wasn't she? Physically safe, of course, so long as she didn't move, give her position away. She just had to hold still. She could see that tiny hand moving, though. How could she hold still with that hand moving back and forth?

Would that image ever fade from her mind? Worse, if the memory of it did fade from her mind, what sort of woman did that say Lacey Townsend had become? How could such a thing ever be brushed aside from a person's thoughts? Wouldn't that make her less than human, to simply brush aside the death of a tiny child like that? She just had to hold on until the police left, until she could move again, then she could do something. But not now, not yet. Just wait and it will be all right.

Lacey hardly noticed the passage of time as she lay there, frozen in fear, in fury, in shock. Although her eyes registered the Bobbies and flashing lights of an ambulance, all she saw was that little girl's tiny hand reaching up to wave across the rear passenger window. That tiny hand waving behind the splatter of her daddy. That tiny hand dropping as the little girl herself was--

The image was frozen in her mind's eye, playing itself over and over again. She couldn't stop it. She couldn't watch it anymore. The little girl began waving now, waving to her daddy just as Dean's first bullet struck the man, just as Lacey had called off the shot. She could hear herself calling to Dean to wait, don't take the shot.

Dean must have heard her. Lacey was the spotter. She was supposed to call off the shot if something unexpected happened. Dean was supposed to listen to her. Dean Gestner didn't listen, that was it. Dean was in the wrong. She'd been right to kill him. He'd been wrong to shoot an innocent child. That little girl hadn't seen a thing. Lacey hoped the child hadn't seen her father shot right in front of her, splashed before her eyes.

Oh, God, please don't let that have been the child's last sight on this Earth.

Lacey lay shaking in the cold Earth, not even feeling the cold. She didn't notice that she was moving until her shivering and shuddering made the leaves rustle so much, she'd heard her own commotion.

Get a hold of yourself. It's not over yet. You still have to get up and walk away. Just walk away. You have a right to walk away. You called off the shot. You called it. He didn't listen.