Ava makes a bargain to dispose of a gangster’s enemy, in exchange for a new life.
It was the 4th of July, the country’s Independence Day. It was Ava’s, too. Although, unlike the nation, Ava was still unsure of what it meant to be free. On the vanity she set the lipstick, “Crimson Dynamo”, and the Colt automatic. Ava hadn’t handled either of these for the five years she’d been jailed at Tehachapi State Prison, but she hadn’t lost her touch with the only things a girl like her really needed.
Independence Day is a short story published in Sister in Crime/Los Angeles’ 2017 anthology entitled Last Resort.
© Avril Adams, 2022
Photo credit: Fabian Fauth via Unsplash.com
AVRIL ADAMS, author 