Barry's grocers and guns was located just a mile past the highway, on the southern edge of town. It was a one-story building, about double the size you'd expect for a small-town grocery store. Barry's grocers was easily the town's most popular grocery store, much to the man's annoyance. During tourist season he had to hire extra cashiers to help him with the influx of customers, something that man seemed to take as a personal offense. I had been one of those cashiers on occasion, and despite Barry's grumbling, he was an excellent boss.

Right next to the building, less than a foot away from it was Don's gas and grub. A gas station and hole in the wall burger joint. Somehow, due to strange zoning laws and the fact that both buildings were built on the very edge of their property, the two businesses were almost touching yet neither one encroached on the others property. I, and everyone else in town, wasn't sure if the two were business partners, lovers, or rivals. I suspected they might be all three. As I walked up to the front entrance I noticed the sign outside the door. It was obviously old, it had been there as long as I could remember, but it was still in excellent condition. Not a hint of grime or scuffing marking its surface. Spelled out on the sign, in black blocky letters, were the words: wipe your feet. There was no please or thank you on the sign, it was a command. A command that I followed, I wasn't going to track mud into the place and have Barry throw me out.

Barry went after dirt and grime with the same level of zeal that religious fanatics channeled when they went on inquisitions. The day his store was anything less than spotless was the day he up and died. Even then I wouldn't put it past him to haunt the place and clean it still.

Boots sufficiently wiped on the doormat; I went inside.

The well-oiled door opened without a sound save for the bells tied to it. The door was in the dead center of the building, in between the two sections of the store. To my left was a grocery store, to my right was a gun shop. In the middle of the room, the shelves switched from holding cans and bags of chips to shotgun shells and gun cases. At the far side of the room from me, a counter stretched from the middle of the room to 20 feet into either side of the shop. With a few swinging doors for employees to enter. Barry didn't care if people shopped from both sides at once, and it was incredibly amusing to see somebody check out with bananas and shotgun shells in the same cart. The second I stepped into the room; Barry called out from behind the counter. "Welcome." His voice was deep and smooth, it fit the man. I walked straight over to the counter.

Barry was a tall man, probably six-one. With a deep barrel chest and broad shoulders that made him look like he could wrestle bears and win.

His face was almost completely hidden behind his massive beard and wild black hair that jutted out in every direction. And well his clothes were clean, they were also rumpled and slightly mismatched. He looked like the uni bomber's less homeless cousin, and definitely not like the clean freak that he was.

I saw his beard shift slightly and knew that meant he was smiling, a little. "Alder, what brings you here. Aren't you a bit early?"

I usually came at the end of every month to get groceries. More often than not that was the only time a month I went into town unless it was for a ghosts last request. I smiled at the large man. "I actually need a gun." He raised a brow, his way of asking me to continue. From behind me I faintly heard the door jingle, Barry waved, "welcome." The man had incredible hearing. There had been a running bet amongst the cashiers one summer to see if there was anywhere in the store, he wouldn't hear somebody calling his name at a normal conversation volume. We had found that there was in fact, nowhere in the store he couldn't hear a normal conversation. It had been a slightly disconcerting realization for me because the man was a vanilla human. Nothing supernatural about him.

I thought about how to word my request and then remembered who I was talking to. Barry was blunt, and he appreciated it when others were as well. "I need a gun with a decent amount of penetration, let's say enough to... Punch through giant crab shells." Barry stared at me for a second, his dark blue eyes standing out behind the curtain of black hair that stretched towards his shoulders. "How big?" He asked. I waggled my hand from side to side. "Anywhere from a Volkswagen bug to a large truck, I would say." I didn't know they would get bigger than a Volkswagen for certain, but I didn't think it was a smart idea to underestimate potential dangers. Barry attempted to stroke his beard, but it was like trying to stroke the sea, his hand just got buried in black hair. He didn't let that stop him and continued the motion as he thought.

"Hypothetically..." I nodded. "Yeah, hypothetically." Barry sighed. "Hypothetically, if you needed a gun to punch through thick chitin, I might have something for you." I smiled. Barry glowered. "I'll be in the back," he said with a harrumph. "The gun needs a bit of work, so I'll be a couple minutes." Barry vanished through a door to the back. I started to turn, planning to browse the shelves. then someone threw their arm around my shoulders and pressed against my side. At the same time, a sharp point pressed against the side of my chest, level with my lungs. My body froze immediately, knowing not to make any sudden movements. My mouth, it seemed, was reading from a different script. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me!" Barry called out from the back, "everything alright?" At the sound of his voice the knife, at least I assumed it was a knife, pressed harder against my side. And a feminine voice whispered in my ear. "Tell him everything is fine." I looked to the left, taking in my assailant.

The woman was somewhere in her early thirties, with a heart-shaped face and faintly Asian features. Her dark green eyes were currently boring into mine, and I noticed with a touch of surprise that her arm was in a sling. Specifically, the arm that held a long wooden handled hunting knife.

Smart, she can keep the knife pressed close without the risk of her arm growing tired, all well appearing natural. As I took her in and she pressed the knife a little harder, I answered with the first excuse I could think of. "I'm fine, Barry. My girlfriend was just showing me her broken arm." There was silence for a long moment and both of us held our breath. An affirmative grunt sounded out from the back room. I sighed in relief as the knife pulled away slightly. Still there, but no longer in danger of breaking my skin from the slightest pressure. The woman whispered in my ear again.

"Start walking, we're going to do a few laps around the store. Then you're going to tell him that you and your girlfriend," the knife pressed a little harder at the word girlfriend. "Need to leave." I nodded my understanding and refrained from swearing.

Once we walked a few dozen feet and entered the grocery section, I asked, "now I'm not complaining, it's nice to be wanted. But why do you people keep trying to kidnap me?" I made sure to keep my voice relatively quiet, not wanting her to think I was trying to draw Barry's attention. Of course, I was trying to draw his attention, but I doubted she knew just how good his hearing was. Or at least, how good it was when he didn't have his headphones on. Which he often did when working on guns. The woman threw her head back and laughed. It was a surprisingly genuine sound and it took me off guard. All the while she laughed the knife didn't twitch or relax in the slightest.

She finished laughing and smiled down at me. She wasn't particularly tall, only five three, but that still put her 3 inches taller than me. And judging by her smile she liked that fact. "I must say you have a wonderful attitude. No begging, no crying. But jokes, we don't get too many jokers." The knife tip twisted slightly, coming dangerously close to drying blood. "It's refreshing." She shot me a smile that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. That smile disturbed me more than the knife, it was plastic. As fake as the expressions on a mannequin. She might be happy but the polite little smile she was showing me wasn't real.

I fought the urge to flinch away from that smile. And gave her one of my own. It was equally fake, and a lot less convincing than hers, but it was better than shaking in fear. We passed by the produce aisle, our footsteps echoing on

the tile floors. I noted with a hint of begrudging approval that she was wearing boots. If she had been wearing less practical shoes, I might have tried to flatten her foot. She had her arm around me, but if I stomp and go limp. "Don't try it. I've been told to take you alive, but you don't need to have your kneecaps to be alive. Hell, people can live a long time with a gut wound. I'm curious to find out how long you would last." Her tone was genuine. I could believe that she really did want to find out.

I decided that stomping was a bad idea. As I discarded that plan, I noticed something in her voice. She had tried to sound dispassionate, cold. As if she were a professional hitter and talking about gut wounds was a matter of professional curiosity. But I had heard the excitement in her voice, an almost childlike excitement. The fear that I had been to spiked up on adrenaline and annoyed to feel finally arrived.

Mr. wards had been professional, he clearly didn't have anything against me. He was doing a job. A job that if he carried out would probably be very bad for me, but it was still just a job. This woman though, she was enjoying this. I didn't know if it was the power, she currently had over me, my fear. Or something else entirely. But she was enjoying the situation.

Well, the safest bet is to give her what she wants then,

isn't it? I very intentionally set my eyes darting about. Taking in the shelves we passed and occasionally flicking to her only to quickly look away. I shifted my body language at the same time, hunching my shoulders slightly and dragging my feet. Her face stayed neutral, in fact, it was a little too neutral. She had put on a mask, not wanting to give anything away. That probably meant my plan was working. Yay me? The further we walked the stiffer and more unnatural the women's movements became. I thought of and discarded half a dozen escape attempts. Trying and failing to think of one that wouldn't get me stabbed.

Once we had finished a loop around the store the woman broke the tense silence. "Aren't you going to ask why again? I never did answer you." The woman's mask was starting to crack. The edges of her lips had started to curl ever so slightly into a smile, her stiff moments transforming into a self-satisfied saunter. She was far too happy with the situation and it was making my skin crawl. I had been considering trying to slide away, knife at the side be damned, when she spoke. She wanted to play, wanted me to ask questions. Well, I was trying to meet her expectations, to put her off guard. Plus, I did want to know.

As I spoke, I added a waiver to my words, hoping to strike the right balance between scared and curious. "Why? Why are you people coming after me?" To my both joy and horror, the woman closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Like a junkie getting their fix. Jesus Christ. I wasn't even that good at acting but she was eating the material up without a second's pause. She smiled down at me and her mask cracked a little more.

I could see the ugly glint in her eyes, the cruel smirk on her lips. "You're bait sweetie. Bait for a big bad monster."

It took a significant effort of will not to shudder as she said 'sweetie'. It was like she was talking to a doll. One that she was getting ready to mutilate. I swallowed a very real lump in my throat and told myself that my dry voice was part of the act. "Care to elaborate?" We paused in the coffee aisle as the woman looked over the brands.

I had the feeling she was thinking about how much she should tell me. I figured now was time to give her a little extra push. "I'm– I'm not afraid of any monster!" I cringed. That had been layering it on too thick, that had sounded more like a nine-year-old trying to be brave than anything. The woman actually shuddered. I did as well, but for a completely different reason.

When she started speaking, I knew the ploy had worked.

"We've had a problem for a few weeks. A little something got out of its cage. It's been a big inconvenience, breaking a few things, breaking a few staff members. It left them in messy, messy pieces." She looked at me as she said that, her eyes gleaming. "Our boss has been fairly upset these past couple of weeks. He introduced the rule of three again. Randy's failure to get you was his third. Poor Randy." She spun on her heel, pulling me along with her. I almost stumbled but the pressure of the knife told me what would happen if I fell. We started retracing the route we had just walked, the woman with an undue amount of pep in her step. "You have to understand, Cheryl is very cautious. Normally she wouldn't attack so quickly. But something about you drove her wild. So," the arm over my shoulders squeezed to punctuate her words. "Bait." I was quiet as we made a few more rounds. I made sure to keep up the act of a terrified kid pretending to be an adult. I wasn't sure exactly how much of it was an act anymore, but it kept the woman distracted and pleased. I considered asking a few more questions, but my mind had its hands full trying to process the answers I already had.

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I assumed Randy was Mr. wards, but just who was their boss and what was the rule of three? Whatever monster Cheryl was, she was cautious enough to run away the second her ambush failed. But strong to throw a car-sized crab corpse and smart enough to avoid capture. That was a terrifying combination, and whoever these people were. they wanted to feed me to that monster.

Panic started to rise in my chest, and I felt my breathing speed up. I tried to squash the feeling but failed, I wasn't used to dealing with living people. Just being this close to a living person made me uncomfortable. she was so... warm! As I began to panic, I saw the look in the woman's eyes, the satisfaction. That look kindled a tiny spark in my chest. A spark that caught and roared into a bonfire of pure spite. I knew it would've been smarter to keep playing scared, but I had been scared far too many times before. I was sick of it.

I straightened my shoulders and glared at the woman.

"Anything else you want to add? Any more petty scare tactics. Because honestly, you're not painting yourself and your organization as very competent. You let a monster that you had for some reason, escape. It's been running on its own for weeks? That's pretty pathetic!" The fervor in the woman's eyes shifted to a cold flatness in a single second. Part of my brain warned me that she wasn't acting, that she had just done an emotional one eighty in an instant, and that sane people didn't have mood swings that drastic that quick. The rest of me didn't care. I kept it glaring at the woman, daring her to say anything.

"I liked you better a second ago." I was surprised I didn't feel ice crystals forming on my skin, her voice was so cold. As she spoke, she slipped the knife into my chest. Only enough to break the skin, but the sudden sharp pain made my blood run as cold as her voice.

"I'm going to enjoy bringing you back. It's funny. The boss was so angry when the cage was damaged. One of his little prisoners escaped." Her voice didn't carry any of the enjoyment she spoke of, it didn't hold anything at all. she had gone from overflowing with sick emotions to completely empty of them in no time flat. "He's the only one who knows their names, of course the rest of us have made our own. Chatty was always my favorite. We were worried he was heading straight for a mage clan. Instead he went to you. I suppose you can't expect a tortured mind to think straight, can you?"

I was beginning to get whiplash from the direction this conversation was going. But I had a feeling I knew what she was talking about. She had mentioned a cage and prisoners. Cagle had said that the original rough Branch was meddling with ghosts. And if I was going to give a cruel nickname to a tongueless ghost then chatty would be high up on the list.

I felt some dark emotions of my own begin to bubble up, and it seemed they showed on my face. "What a wonderful look. Maybe I do like this side of you. It will certainly be more entertaining to watch than a scared wretch when Cheryl rips your arms off." I glared at the woman and had to clench my teeth to stop from spitting at her. I had a feeling she would respond to something like that by piercing a lung. She showed me her teeth, her expression still flat, and said, "all right, I've had enough fun. You're going to go tell the bum that we're leaving."

Before she even finished speaking, she was dragging me towards the gun section. She really wasn't wasting any more time, we practically jogged over to the area, only slowing in order to not look suspicious. The short walk was painful for me, she had lowered her arm slightly so that it was around my upper back, pressing in on the bruises that covered it.

At least she had taken the knife out of my side, it seems she didn't want to risk impaling me by accident. Aren't I lucky? I was desperately thinking of a way to signal to Barry that something was wrong without getting stabbed when we walked into view of the counter. Barry was standing behind it staring down the sites of a pump-action shotgun. The woman, to her credit, reacted immediately. Diving to the side and trusting that Barry wouldn't shoot when he could risk hitting me. Her bet paid off and the gun didn't fire as we fell back into one of the aisles. I twisted as we hit, and thankfully didn't get punctured by the knife. It did, however, carve a line of pain across the side of my chest as I rolled away from her. I tried to climb to my feet, but she jumped at me, swinging the butt of the knife like a club. I flattened myself and her blow swished above my head. I did my best attempt at a jumping push-up and tried to crash into her. Due to my lightweight and the fact that I did get a lot of exercise, I was able to half jump, half push myself into her chest. Unfortunately, due to my lightweight, she just grunted and slid her arm under one of mine, trying to get me in some sort of wrestling hold. I bucked and sent us both crashing onto our backs.

I wriggled like a greased eel, breaking her hold and ending up on top. She started to bring the knife around, so I brought my head around in an attempt to crash it into her nose. She moved her head. I struck the floor with my forehead and stars exploded in my vision. She kneed me off her with another explosion of pain in my ribs. I could vaguely feel the tip of the knife pressed into the back of my neck a moment later, then a voice barked, "stop!" The woman stopped. Who did that voice belong to? I kind of recognized it. I blinked my eyes, squinting at the reflection of the lights in the tile floor.

They were so bright! Why did a floor need to be this shiny?

"well, this is a little awkward. I like to think of myself as a competent individual, yet here I am in a standoff." A woman's voice said from above me. The floor had been polished until I could've read a book in the reflection. I knew a guy that this obsessive about cleaning, whoever owned this place should meet him sometime, they'd get along. "Remove the knife." The familiar voice again. "There is no guarantee I can't plant this knife into his neck before you pull the trigger. And even if you kill me before I finish him off, I'm going to fall on the hilt when I die. You kill me, you kill him." I wasn't sure who the lady was talking about, but she must be nuttier than a squirrel to be that much of a kamikaze. Wait a second, there's a knife against the back of my neck? "Oh crap, you're talking about me!" I tried to think of something to do, but the pounding in my head kept scrambling my thoughts before I could gather them. "I really don't want to have to clean your brains off my floors, remove the knife." The man's voice again, he sure was worried about his floors. Wait a minute. Was that Barry's voice? "Before this gets even more out of hand, I'm curious." The woman's voice, why was she threatening me?

"How did you know? You were waiting and ready, what gave

it away." There was a tense silence for a second and I felt my shoulders hunch up instinctively, preparing for the knife that was about to come. "The situation was off." I was sure it was Barry, said. "I was sitting in the back with my headphones on, but something Alder said kept coming back to me." As he spoke, Barry's voice was as clipped and blunt as usual. "Girlfriend? Alder doesn't have any friends, much less a girlfriend. Your cover story was too unbelievable. So, I took off my headphones and heard your conversation."

That dick! "Screw you, Barry! I have game!" I shouted. Both of them ignored me. The woman started to laugh and made no attempt to hide the ugly emotions and it this time. The sound graded up my ears, like rusty hinges squealing in a storm. It made me tuck up slightly, which caused pain to flare up in my side. Where She had kneed me. The woman was perched on top of me, but my hands could move around somewhat. Well, she laughed, and the standoff continued, I reached down to my side. My head was still foggy, but something told me I needed to move, to act. So, I stiffened my fingers into points and drove them into my side. My side exploded in pain, a rushing wave of it sent crashing through me. A wave that cleared away the foggy confusion and tapped into an older part of the brain. If I didn't move, I was going to die.

The woman was still laughing her horrible laugh when I hunched my shoulders and twisted my body to the right. The knife that had been perched at the back of my neck was moved away slightly from the motion, just enough for me to move without killing myself. At the same time, the twist put me further away from easy stab range. I normally wouldn't have taken that risk, there was no guarantee that the knife would've been far enough away that I wouldn't die anyway. But I was bait, and you don't kill your bait. Still, If I was by myself it wouldn't buy me enough time to stop me from getting stabbed after the woman regained her balance. But I wasn't by myself.

The butt of Barry shotgun caught the woman in the jaw. She collapsed backwards, tumbling down like a puppet with its cut strings. Barry wasn't taking any chances though and took three steps back and kept the barrel pointed at her. I laughed, the adrenaline in my system making me feel as if I was on a sugar high. "I forgive you for the earlier slander, Barry! Ha ha!" Barry gave me a level look and nodded towards the woman. "You know her?"

I shook my head. "I met her a few minutes ago when she put a knife to my side." Barry grunted. "Come over here, my phones in my right pocket. Call the cops." As he spoke, the gun never wavered or twitched. I started to get up, then my aura screamed a warning. It was veiled tightly and a few feet away from the downed woman. And it still felt like hot teeth were scraping against it. I had never unveiled my aura to check, not wanting to get stabbed, but I had a feeling this woman had two wards on her just like the last guy. And that second Ward. I flattened myself to the ground and screamed, "Barry! Down!" The man didn't hesitate, throwing himself onto his back in an instant.

Less than a second later the room above us began to tear itself apart. Cans of ammo flew and popped; gun cases came apart in pieces. Even the metal shelves screamed and warped as indivisible blades tore across them. Lights exploded in showers of sparks and of the very air howled louder than a storm. The only thing that wasn't touched... Was us. My warning had reached Barry just-in-time, and I was already on the ground. Despite the utter devastation above us, we were untouched. All of it was happening above knee height. The damage wasn't only physical either, I could feel it pushing against my head. Its intent was clear. This Ward had been made for one purpose, to destroy. To harm, break, and unmake anything it came across. It had likely been created with air magic, but that hadn't been why it was created.

I was so used to defending against psychic attacks that it was only when the ward abruptly stopped that I even noticed that the ward had contained one. I yelped and covered my head as all the debris, a large portion of it metal, that had been thrown into the air started to crash down.

Shards of broken glass and torn metal pelted me. But since it had come through the magical equivalent of a blender all of the shards were too small to do any serious damage. After what felt like an unreasonably long amount of time, the rain stopped, and I sat up with a small groan of pain. The woman was gone. For all I knew she could've crawled away the second the ward started. Faintly I heard tires screeching against the pavement. And that would be her driving away. I looked over at Barry, making sure he was alright. He had a few cuts on his arms and his beard was littered with glass shards and bits of metal. But he looked mostly unharmed. I climbed to my feet, wobbling slightly as I did.

My vision tilted and a sense of vertigo swept over me. I'd had concussions before, and I didn't think this quite qualified. But it was definitely in the same neighborhood. I hobbled over to Barry, I didn't think there was a single part of me that didn't hurt and extended a hand to help him up.

He looked at the hand, snorted, then climbed to his feet. Fair enough, he was not a small man. As Barry climbed to his feet, I looked around the store in numb horror. A 10-foot circle of pure destruction had spread through the room, trashing everything in that circle. I turned to Barry. I felt overwhelmed. This was too much. Gunman and crazies coming after me. Giant crabs and some monster they wanted to feed me to. And layered over it all were the fresh memories of a dead man.

"I'm so sorry, Barry, I," Barry's hand landing on my shoulder cut me off. His hand was callused and as I looked into his calm blue eyes, I felt very much like a child looking at an adult. "Alder, you need to learn this, and the sooner you do the better. You don't control other people." "But –" he shook his head. "No. I'm not saying your actions don't have consequences, I have a feeling you know that already. But that doesn't make you responsible for everything that might relate to you. Did you do anything wrong to get that woman to come after you?"

I shook my head, a little stunned at the number of words I was hearing from the man. "Did you know she was after you, that she would follow you here." I closed my eyes. "I knew there were people after me, I had no idea they would follow me here though. There was just one other and they had been discrete." His hand squeezed, the gesture reassuring. "Then you had no reason to think she would. Her actions are her responsibility, just like yours are your own. You can't take responsibility for everything. You'll tear yourself apart." I wanted to protest, to disagree. But the man was right. I hadn't known she would come, I thought I would have time to prepare. I thought they wouldn't want to cause a scene.

Those false assumptions were my fault. But I knew I couldn't blame myself for all of this. I opened my eyes and looked at the ravaged shelves and ruined merchandise. "But your store, I." Barry cut me off again. "Alder," his voice was chiding now if still clipped. "You know I make more than enough money to cover fixing this. I'll hire a... A cleaning crew to help me." He sounded scandalized as he said that, like he was paying someone to come violate his grandma.

"And another crew to repair. All have this side of the store up again in a week. And the grocery side will still run just fine." I nodded, taking a deep breath as I did. "Now then, Barry said. "Cops?" I looked around us, at the deeper rents that had been torn in thick metal shelves, then back to Barry. "No. This is from my side of the street, which I'm sure you already guessed." He nodded. "Let's check you out, then we'll see about that gun."

Twenty minutes later I stood in front of the counter, a bandage on my side where the knife had cut me slightly. Barry had given me some of his pain meds that he took for having bad knees. It was some high-powered stuff, but thankfully it was non-drowsy since he used it for work. Those meds were already going to work, reducing my headache and the other pains in my battered body. Barry had declared that I "was a bit banged up. But didn't have a concussion." Something that I was grateful for, my judgment was bad enough already, I didn't need head injuries on top of that.

My attention was snapped back to the present as Barry walked up to the counter with a shotgun that could only be described as elephantine. It was a shiny gray color. With a wooden pump and grip with no stock. The barrel looked like it was nearly as big as my fist. And from the sound the gun made as Barry set it down it had to weigh a ton. Which was likely the only thing that would keep it from breaking your arm from recoil.

Barry patted the gun affectionately and set down a small box full of massive, obviously custom-made, slugs. "My own design, my own slugs. It will be like getting hit with a metal baseball thrown by the Hulk." I blinked at the massive gun, then at Barry. "Is this legal?" He shrugged, what little of his face I could see past his beard, impassive. "Mostly." "Mostly?" He patted the gun again, his expression like a proud father. "Most of the parts that went into making it are legal.

At least 70% of them." I smiled. I needed to move quickly though. For all I knew they could already be sending someone else after me.

"How much for it?" I asked, dreading the answer. Barry looked at me for a second, his calm blue eyes steady as a lake. "It's not for sale." I winced, a little annoyed he had wasted my time. "Do you have anything else that packs a..." I trailed off as he slid the gun across the counter towards me. "It's not for sale. But I can lend it to you for a bit. No charge." I looked at the man, my mouth working silently. "Are you sure?" His bushy beard split into a smile before settling back to normal. "Kid. I don't know the kind of things you're dealing with; I don't want to know. I don't have too many principles. But I keep to the ones I have. I can't send you out there unarmed." I felt my eyes begin to water and I wiped my arm across them. "I uh, I think I have something in my eye." Barry smiled at me and I needed to clear my eyes again. I was not used to talking to living people. But I knew I had been wrong when I said I didn't have any living friends.

The unexpected kindness hit me harder than I had been expecting. And I felt my voice crack slightly as I thanked him. I reached out and grabbed the gun, it's heavy weight comforting.

I stuffed the box of shells into my pocket, the corners making

my pocket bulge slightly.

Barry held up her hand, signaling for me to wait. Then he hurried into the back. A second later he came out with a thick braided strap and a slim metal case. "The strap can be clipped to the case or the gun. And the case is waterproof. I nodded as I took them. I wanted to say thank you again, but I didn't trust my voice. I bowed my head for a second and settled for whispering. "Thank you." Barry nodded and cleared his throat.

"Hurry up and get out of my shop, I have cleanup to do."

Without another word I turned and strode to the door. Something the woman had said rang in my ears. "I suppose you can't expect a tortured mind to act irrationally, can you?" My grip tightened on the strap and my focus narrowed. If her words meant what I thought, they did... The door closed behind me on silent hinges as I walked out into a brewing storm.