She straightened in the middle aisle between the snack stands and unleashed black tendrils of her magic at the closest gunman. The dark coil whipped around the gun and pulled Denim Guy 1 forward, yanking the weapon from his grasp. His momentum sent him head-first into the beer cooler door, and he struck it with a thump.
Denim Guy 2 looked like he’d just woken from a bad dream. He turned toward Cheyenne and saw her in a different spot. He went to aim at her, but she threw purple and black sparks at his face. He howled in pain and dropped the gun to bury his face in his hands. She stepped toward him and glanced around the convenience store for something to tie these guys up with. Prepackaged shoelaces hung on a hook below the counter.
The screeching burglar fell to his knees, clutching at his face. Cheyenne headed for the shoelaces, then spared a quick glance toward the beer cooler. Denim Guy 1 wasn’t where she’d seen him fall.
His running shout came a second before he slammed into her from behind. Cheyenne’s head whipped back as she fell toward the edge of the counter. She stopped herself with her hands and spun to the side as her attacker’s fist whipped through the air where she’d just been. Her hand shot toward his neck, which she caught with the edge of her palm. The guy choked and staggered back, hands to his throat, staring at her in disbelief and desperation.
These are just regular, stupid criminals. No magic. I can’t let everything out on them.
“Just give up, man.” She shrugged. “I’m not even trying.”
Denim Guy2 with the burned face sobbed into his hands.
Then 1 released a choked, garbled shout and charged her again. Cheyenne stepped out of the way and let him run into the beer cooler door a second time. She grabbed him by the back of his stupid denim jacket, both the top and the bottom, and yanked him away from the glass door.
She’d only meant to shove him down the aisle, maybe make him trip on himself or his friend and get them both on the ground. Learning how to stay in her happy place made it hard to gauge how much strength she needed to use, though. The halfling ended up lifting the guy off his feet and tossing him clear over the tops of all three rows of snacks, instant meals, protein bars, and expensive sample-sized packets of over-the-counter pain relievers. He landed on top of the ice-cream cooler beside the door. The glass beneath him cracked, and his flailing feet kicked over a rack of sunglasses.
Cheyenne stifled a laugh. “Whoops.”
The guy on the ice cream cooler groaned.
“Stay there.” She darted around the aisles and stopped in front of him with another crack in the air. It took all the cookie packages off the shelf at the end of the aisle and scattered them around her feet. The half-assed burglar took a swing at her anyway, which didn’t help his precarious balance on the cooler.
She leaned back at normal speed and avoided the blow. “Why?”
He swung again, missed again, and tried to leap off the cooler. His legs didn’t get the memo, and he wobbled and fell on the floor, crushing the packaged cookies.
“Stop.” Cheyenne reached for his shoulder, but he slapped her hand away and grunted. “You probably have a concussion, so…”
He swung at her again and glared at her with glazed, unfocused eyes.
“Oh, boy.” She stepped back a few feet, and the guy kept coming. His foot came down on a knocked-aside bottle of allergy pills, and he lost his already questionable footing. The guy’s chin hit the floor with a crack, and Cheyenne wrinkled her nose. This was not what I was going for, but Katie’s not shot, and nobody got robbed. So there’s that.
She grabbed the back of the guy’s denim jacket and made sure she lugged him with a little less force to where his buddy was now hunched all the way over his knees in front of the counter, sobbing and groaning and still clutching his face. His unconscious partner thumped on the floor beside him, but it didn’t stop his whining.
With a sigh, Cheyenne snatched two packages of extra shoelaces from the hook and stripped off the paper with one quick jerk. When she grabbed the crying guy’s wrists to pull them down from his face, he screamed even louder.
“Hey!” He stopped short at her tone, and she put a little more pressure on his wrists. “You already know what I can do, so cool it.”
The guy held his breath, and she jerked his hands away from his face to reveal a blistered, puckered mess where eyes, a nose, and a mouth should have been. Cheyenne couldn’t help moaning in surprise and disgust…and maybe some sympathy. Maybe.
“That’s what you get for shooting up gas stations like an idiot.” She jerked his hands behind him, wrapped the shoelaces tight around both wrists, and made sure he couldn’t slip out of them. She did the same with the triple-concussed guy on the floor and stood. “Rethink your choices. Or something.”
The guy with the mangled face was still holding his breath. Whatever it was, it lasted long enough to make him pass out—or maybe it was just the pain. Either way, he slumped beside his friend, and Cheyenne blinked at the two beat-up humans in matching denim jackets tied up inside a ring of smashed chip bags and spilled Rolos.
“Yeah. Weird night.”
Katie groaned behind the counter, and Cheyenne hurried toward the door. She couldn’t let anyone else see her like this, and she hadn’t mastered the part of her magic that required turning off the drow whenever she wanted.
The Cheyenne Katie knows left, like, ten minutes ago.
“Oh, my God.” Katie pulled herself to her
