“Exacting a Price” was written in January 2022 for a 2500-word Short Story competition where I was assigned a genre (Crime Caper), subject (An Embargo), and character (A Showgirl). Unfortunately, I missed the deadline. My first draft came out at nearly 5000 words and with less than an hour remaining, I had to trim it down. I only got it to ~3200. Both versions are listed below.

Catch-all