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Alfie Schratz looked even more off-putting in person. It wasn’t his features, which were all perfectly normal, but rather how they looked together and the deadness in his eyes that made his smile all the more eerie. It reminded me of the uncanny valley, which I’d learned about in one of my first computer science classes. The slight dissimilarities between humans and computer-generated, human-like figures, like robots and AI. The creepy, uneasy feeling you got around something that looked just slightly off. That’s how Alfie looked; not quite human.
“Didn’t expect this to be so easy,” he bragged, though his smile dimmed as he added, “Makes it a little less fun.”
I watched his hands, looking for any sign of weakness in his hold, but he wasn’t some untrained burglar. He was a professional. His hands didn’t shake as he held his gun in a two-handed grip, palm supporting his other hand to keep his arm steady. I didn’t bother to respond to his taunts, knowing nothing I said would help the situation.
He rocked back on his heels, eyes flicking aroundIn Bloom, and I knew what he was looking for. Who he was looking for. Just the thought of him seeing Wren made me feel violent, and I tried to take advantage of his distraction, to put myself back on equal footing before Wren reappeared.
I flexed my fingers toward the back waistband of my pants, where I’d kept a gun tucked away since I started serving bodyguard duty for Wren, but a sinister bark of laughter had my hand freezing in place.
“Don’t even try. You think you’ll be able to kill me before I kill you? That’ll give me all the time I want with your little girlfriend. She can’t be far. I know you spend all your time together.”
I gritted my teeth, trying to keep myself from doing anything reckless knowing that Wren would be emerging from the back room at any moment. Part of me hoped for her appearance, both so I could reassure myself with her presence but also so Alfie’s focus would be split. The other part of me hoped she stayed hidden, hating any possibility that put Wren in this psychopath’s eyeline.
“Take the gun out with one hand,” Alfie instructed, leveling his gun between my eyes, “And set it on the counter.”
I recalled the information Alex and I had dug up on Alfie, his proclivity for shooting first and asking questions later, which was part of why he had left his previous job to strike out on his own. I also had to give him credit for his planning, choosing to hold me at gunpoint as the sun set, when the glare onIn Bloom’s front windows didn’t allow anyone on the street to see inside.
I knew it wasn't a coincidence, not with his timing so perfect. The shop had just closed, meaning no customers would interrupt his plan. Wren’s part-timers weren’t in today, meaning no additional witnesses. And the streets were less busy than normal, everyone preparing for the festivities later tonight.
He was smart, I’d give him that, which meant he wouldn’t be easy to trick. I couldn’t guarantee I could disarm him before he’d shoot, and with Wren in the picture, I wasn’t willing to take the risk. So I took my gun out with two fingers and placed it gently on the counter, trying not to make any loud noises that would startle Wren and force her out of the back room prematurely. I pushed the weapon slightly across the surface so Alfie couldn’t grab it without reaching or turning his back on me. If there was one thing I knew, despite never being in a situation like this, it was that I didn’t want Alfie to have two weapons to use against me.
Happy with his power play, Alfie forced me back a few feet, until my back almost pressed against the wall of vases Wren meticulously organized by color and design. If he shot me and ruined Wren’s vase wall, she’d be fucking pissed.
Chapter24
Wren
I paused midwaythrough changing into my Halloween costume when I heard voices at the front of the shop, an unfamiliar growl - a man’s voice - clashing with Bex’s familiar rasp. The man’s cadence wasn’t familiar, which had me quickly bouncing out of the back room, knowing Bex wasn’t the ideal customer service representative. I hated spoiling my Halloween costume before it was fully put-together and considered calling out to Bex to have her close her eyes as I emerged from the back hallway. But just as I opened my mouth to yell to her, something about the cadence of the voices changed, making me lighten my steps as I turned the corner, stopping when I took in the scene in front of me.
Bex stood against my wall of vases, hands raised as a man held a gun in her direction. It didn’t take long for me to recognize who he was, even if I could only see his profile from this angle. Alex had shown me Alfie’s picture, making sure I knew what he looked like. I appreciated it at the time, his unwillingness to keep me in the dark, though Alfie’s face had haunted my dreams for a few nights afterwards, his lifeless eyes even worse than what I’d been imagining sinceIn Bloomwas broken into.
Before the picture, I could imagine Alfie as a man doing his job, the way I saw Alex and Dev. Good people who enjoyed working in the dark and liked the danger that their jobs brought them. But with Alfie, I could tell it wasn’t the job he enjoyed. Looking at his face, even just a photo of it, I knew he would enjoy any pain he put me through, and that if he found me he wouldn’t just break another window of my store.
Seeing him now, standing across from Bex with a gun held in her face, I knew this would end in violence. My phone still sat on the table in the back room, laying on top of the pile of clothes I’d changed out of. It was also dead, thanks to three dozen cat videos I’d shown Bex during lunch, which meant Bex and I were on our own.
Bex had installed a panic button when she first outfittedIn Bloomwith security equipment, and I eyed the small, discreet button hidden underneath the counter. It was out of Alfie’s eyeline, and considering Bex’s gun sat just above the button, it was likely our only chance of getting out of this unscathed.
I crept across the floor, thankful that I’d become familiar with the squeakiest pieces of flooring so I could avoid them in my boots. Bex’s eyes didn’t flick to me once, not even as I tiptoed closer to the counter.
“Where’s the girl?” Alfie asked, freezing me a couple feet from the counter. A slight flame of indignation lit in my chest at his use of the wordgirl. It wasn’t the word so much as the tone, which he infused with a sneer as if I were a child.
“Not here,” Bex replied with a shrug, eyes still on Alfie, though at that point I must have been directly in her line of sight. If not, Bex was much worse at her job than I’d given her credit for, and we were probably both fucked. I tried not to laugh at my little joke, hysteria creeping in the longer I stood in the open. Going for it, I took a step closer to the counter, stopping again when Bex said, “She left out the back door half an hour ago.”
I could read between the lines. Bex was urging me out the back door, to the hallway that connected all the shops on the block. The rear entrance led to the dumpster, a loading area, and served as an additional fire exit. I could sneak back into the hallway, run out the door, escape to the parking lot and find a phone to use.
But I wouldn’t leave her, I couldn’t, so instead I took the last few steps and quickly pressed the panic button, hoping like hell Bex had programmed it to send an alert to the guys and not just her own phone, which audibly buzzed in her pocket the moment I hit the button.
Alfie didn’t flinch at the sound, likely assuming it was a phone call or a text message, and just continued his villain monologue, voice turning somehow colder. “I don’t need you if she’s not here,” he told Bex. I could hear the sick smile, how it changed his voice as he continued, “What’s keeping me from killing you now?”
“Nothing,” Bex shrugged again, looking nonchalant as she faced down the possibility of death. “I told you, Wren left a while ago. You’ll have to go looking somewhere else.”
My fists clenched at my side at Bex’s subtle urging to leave her behind. What she’d been trying to get me to do since the first moment she met me. And yet, despite her urging, I knew if the roles were reversed, Bex wouldn’t leave no matter how hard I insisted. She never would’ve left me behind. She so easily put my safety first, even before we were together. Bex protected me when she hated me, when she wanted me gone, and yet expected me to abandon her to pursue my own safety?
No fucking way. Just the thought of it pissed me off, and I picked up the gun that sat at the edge of the counter. I adjusted my grip on the weapon, the weight familiar and soothing after half a dozen lessons with Dev, and I hoped shooting at such a close range would give me a better chance at possibly hitting something vital. Dev was a pro, after all, so it only made sense that six lessons from him were the equivalent of two dozen from someone less skilled.
Either way, no one else was here to help us. Even if Dev and Alex had received an alert from the panic button, they were at least ten minutes away. Fifteen or twenty with traffic, maybe more considering the holiday. Waiting for kids to cross the street or drunk college students who’d pre-gamed a little too hard. Not to mention they’d have to grab weapons and make a quick plan. We wouldn’t be getting any help from a concerned citizen, either, the sunset always casting a glare on the front windows bright enough to blind anyone who tried to look in the store.
I studied Alfie from behind, the shifting of his feet, the way his head occasionally turned toward the front windows of the shop, as if making sure the setting sun still masked his crime. I didn’t think we had fifteen minutes, not if the sun set soon and Alfie felt rushed to act before he was caught. He didn’t seem like the kind of man to just let Bex go, to come back another day. He seemed like he’d kill her just to have one less person standing between him and what he wanted.
