was locked, so it didn’t open, but the person on the other side had tried to open it so roughly, as though they’d walked right into the door expecting it to open for them at this hour, that the bell tinkled anyway.
“Mason?” he asked when the door jingled again. Derek walked to the door with an inflated heart and a smile on his face, just to stop at the dark shadow that loomed on the other side of the glass.
Not Mason. “Sorry, we’re closed,” Derek said.
The door rattled again. Derek had to tell himself to stop being such a pussy and just go over there and tell the guy.
“Sir, we’re clo―oh.”
It was the old man was before. His face was serious as he stared at
Derek through the glass and bars of the door. The kind of serious someone had before they killed a man.
The deep frown on his mouth and black shadows under his eyes
wasn’t helping that either, nor was the handgun he had. He put it to the glass and pointed it at Derek.
“Open the door, son,” the man said, his voice muffled through the glass, but Derek still understood him perfectly.
He wished he couldn’t, but he had no choice in the matter with a
deadly weapon pointed at him. Not even his dad pointed a gun at him when he came out to his family, and they were heavily against his way of life.
Derek moved slowly, fearful that anything too quick would spook the guy into firing. They kept their eyes locked as Derek twisted the latch that bolted the door and then turned off the alarm.
The old man stepped inside, and with his eyes, and the gun, still on Derek, he signaled to the others he had waiting for him outside.
Great. All three were still together.
“Listen, if it’s the guns you want, I don’t care, you can have them.”
“Be quiet, boy,” said the older man, and he turned to one of his
younger companions.
“You sure ’bout this, Billy?”
30 Marcy Jacks
Billy stepped forward, his eyes scrutinizing Derek. “Yeah, positive. Those tire tracks came from that truck that was parked out in front of this shop before we came in. He and that wolf were talking.”
Derek’s eyes just about popped out of his head. Holy shit, these guys were actually hunters. They were out to kill Mason and the rest of his pack.
Derek had never met hunters in real life before. Now that he had,
he was wishing with everything inside him that he wasn’t. There was definitely no thrill to this.
The fact that they spoke so openly right in front of Derek couldn’t be a good thing either.
“Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’ve had barely any customers all day and none of them were regulars. If you’re looking for someone, then I can promise you I don’t know them.”
He’d promise that the sun revolved around the earth, too, if that was what would make these guys happy.
Billy shook his head. “No. I came here earlier after that guy entered this building. You had the door locked and the ‘Closed’ sign up until your friend left and we came back. Those were his tire tracks, sir. This guy’s a supporter.”
“A supporter of what? I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Derek said, starting to panic now as it looked more and more like these guys weren’t about to let him off the hook.
Their leader nodded, and then he reached behind his back and
pulled out a set of very official-looking handcuffs.
Derek lost it at the sight of them. He remembered the stories Mason had told him about when a hunter thought someone might have information they wanted. There was no way in hell Derek was going to let these guys strap him to a table somewhere and strip the skin from his body.
Pushing the old man’s hand out of the way, the one that had been holding the gun, Derek shoved him back.
Mason Returns to His Mate 31
The gun fired, and the old man went down, falling against a stack of display boxes that Derek had kept near the door.
The old man swore loudly, and Derek turned tail and ran for his life.
“You mother fucking son of a bitch!” Billy yelled, chasing after
him as the old man screamed and cried out.
Good. Derek hoped he broke the old guy’s hip.
He jumped over the counter like he was still nineteen or something, fleeing to his back room. To the heavy door that was there.
“I’ll get you, you fucking faggot!”
Derek was so happy he got into running.
The door to his back room was left open for him, and with the momentum he was running at, as he ran into his storage room, he grabbed the door handle and pulled it shut behind him just as that kid reached his hand out to grab hold of the door.
He got his fingers caught and shrieked instead when Derek slammed the door on them. He winced at the gross crunch and highpitched shrieking but didn’t stop trying to pull the door shut.
Billy had to grab the door handle, and Derek watched him stick his foot on the wall in the most desperate of acts and pull back on the door just enough to free his hand, allowing Derek to shut and lock himself in without taking Billy’s fingers with him.
The door was heavy and a good three inches of metal. It was as good as a panic room and was where Derek kept all the ammunition and other assorted items that hadn’t been priced to sell yet.
The only thing it didn’t have compared to a real panic room was a direct line to the police.
But it did have a window.
It was small as all hell, but he could unlock it from where he was
and squeeze through if he tried.
The first thing he did was grab a Glock. He’d lied when he told
that old psychopath out there and his team that he had no handguns. It
32 Marcy Jacks
was his only handgun, and he had only a single clip to go with it, unfortunately,
