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Before heading back to Jewell?s after work, Skyler first stopped by Cosmo Beach per Tommy?s request. Following the instructions he had been given, he went down to the basement and found the Figure waiting for him.

?You wanted to talk to me, Tommy?? Skyler glanced at the odd looking chair in the middle of the room. His boss sat in the chair, as if it was some sort of throne. It was wooden, with many straps and metal wires connected to it. He?d never seen anything like it before. Tommy must have been busy buying new furniture while he was off living with Jewell.

That he was about to die did not cross his mind. Oblivious to the purpose of the strange chair, he stood as subserviently as ever before the huge, hulking form of his boss.

For a moment he was convinced he was trapped in a dream. He seemed to see Tommy draw his huge magnum in slow motion. He saw every inch of his hand?s journey to the gun, then the gun?s ascension to point at his head. What he was seeing simply wouldn?t register. Why is Tommy aiming his gun at me? Is he just playing around? Of course he is. He?s trying to scare me. I wonder why?

Bright pain flared in his legs as his kneecaps exploded into many pieces. Blood and bone sprayed out behind him. His legs instantly buckled. Skyler knew he wasn?t dreaming, but he was absolutely at a loss as to why Tommy could have shot him. He was so confused he couldn?t even manage to get angry. Surely the man must have him mistaken for someone else? What other reason could there be?

?Tommy! It?s me! Why are you shooting me?? From the cold, bloody floor of the basement he peered up, way up, into Tommy?s ever-scowling face . . . and saw in those cruel brown eyes of his mentor that the shots he had fired had not been mistakes.

So it had all come to this. All those feelings he had always had that his life really meant something, that he had an important purpose to fulfill in the world ? none of it was true. His end was going to come in the basement of the lavish mansion he had once called home. The place in which he had once felt so cool and powerful and important was now going to be the site of his demise.

What bothered him the most wasn?t that his end was going to come at this moment in time, but that he wasn?t prepared! He didn?t care what Tommy?s reasons were; he didn?t care if he was being killed unjustly. Surely Skyler had committed enough sin in his lifetime to warrant an unjust fatality. Now, in the end, all he cared about was Jewell. If he had just been able to see her one last time, if he had only gotten a chance to tell her goodbye . . . dying tonight might not have been so bad, no matter how painful it might be.

He grasped at his side, reaching for his gun, even though he knew it wasn?t there. Not that it would have mattered. There was no one in the entire world who could outdraw Tommy Hill Figure. Blood was spurting from his destroyed kneecaps. A red pool was forming beneath his body. He remembered the last time he lay in a pool of his own blood after one of Tommy?s attacks. Jewell had come to his rescue. He knew he wouldn?t be that lucky tonight.

?Tommy . . . Just give me paper and a pen. I need to write something to Jewell. That?s all I ask. PLEASE! All this time of loyal service, that?s all I ask. Then I won?t resist . . . I?ll go willingly . .. into the night.?

The pain was impossible to ignore. He tried to think of Jewell, concentrating as hard as he could on her face . . . but it was hard. His legs were a throbbing inferno of agony. The pencil and paper Tommy had thrown landed in the blood, staining the page red. He fumbled it out, and, with a shaky hand, wrote his final words to Jewell Ravenlock, groaning and writhing as he scrawled.

A surge of pain ripped through him from his head to his leg. It felt the worst in his arms, back and chest. Virtually all of his muscles convulsed as the current sent them into acute contractions. He arched his back and strained against the straps. As the current passed through the cardiac center in his brain?s medulla, it arrested his heart. The high voltage killed his brain by massive depolarization of the brain and its stem neural structure, which had the effect of a light switch going off in his mind.

For the few seconds his brain remained aware, Skyler thought of Jewell. He pictured her face . . . until his mind was no longer capable of functioning. He would have called out her name, but his jaw was locked tight, and his tongue caught on fire and melted.

Tommy administered two subsequent jolts shortly after the first, and this time the current literally baked his organs; his internal temperature rose to 138 degrees. Blood leaked from his ears and his eyes were blown out of their sockets. His flesh swelled and his skin stretched to the point of breaking; his body turned bright red as its temperature continued to climb.

Finally, his heart stopped. As a small wisp of smoke rose from his head, Skyler Jackson Chamberland passed away.