leaned back just a little. ‘People keep telling me that.’
Mercer’s hand drifted toward the inside of his jacket.
Every eye followed it.
Scar’s voice dropped. ‘Leave it.’
Mercer paused.
The diner went so quiet the rain seemed loud enough to have a voice.
Then Mercer smirked. ‘You really want to do this here? In front of all these people?’
Scar looked around the room.
At Linda behind the counter.
At the bikers now awake in every sense that mattered.
At the trucker whose knuckles had gone white around a coffee mug.
At the boy shaking against him.
Then he looked back at Mercer.
‘Looks like here found you.’
Before Mercer could answer, the lights went out.
Darkness swallowed the diner whole.
Someone screamed.
A chair crashed backward.
The jukebox sparked once in the black, then died for good.
Scar moved on instinct. He grabbed the boy and pulled him below the table, shielding him with his body as glass shattered somewhere near the front window. Cold rain blew across the floor. A woman cried out. Boots pounded. Someone yelled for everyone to get down.
A red emergency bulb blinked over the kitchen door.
Light.
Dark.
Light.
Dark.
Each flash revealed a different piece of the chaos.
Linda ducked behind the counter.
Moose had overturned a table and crouched behind it.
Mercer stood near the entrance with a gun in his hand.
And at the broken window, there was another man.
Not inside yet.
But watching.
Scar saw the shape of him in the red pulse of emergency light. Tall. Hooded. One hand pressed to an earpiece. The other holding something metal.
Mercer had not come alone.
The boy knew it too. His breath came in tiny broken sounds.
‘How many?’ Scar whispered.
The boy swallowed. ‘Three. Maybe four. There was a van.’
‘Where?’
‘Behind the diner. Near the dumpsters.’
Scar looked toward Moose and raised two fingers.
Moose understood immediately.
He tapped Preacher on the shoulder, then pointed toward the kitchen. The back exit led to a narrow alley. If the van was there, someone needed to find it before it moved.
Mercer lifted his gun. ‘Nobody leaves.’
Linda rose from behind the counter holding an old shotgun with both hands.
‘Funny,’ she said. ‘I was about to say the same thing.’
Mercer’s eyes flicked to her.
That was his second mistake.
The third came when the front door burst open again.
A little girl stumbled in.
She was even smaller than the boy. Seven, maybe eight. Her hair was tangled. Her cheek was scratched. She was barefoot and covered in mud up to her knees. In her hands, she held a phone so tightly her fingers had turned pale.
The boy jerked upright. ‘Maya!’
The girl ran toward him, but stopped when she saw Mercer.
Her face folded in terror.
Scar rose just enough to put himself between her and the gun.
Mercer stared at the phone.
For the first time since entering the diner, he looked afraid.
Maya held the screen out toward Linda. ‘I pressed the red button like Eli said. It was recording.’
The phone showed a shaky video.
Rain.
A white van.
Its back doors open.
Inside, two women sat bound with tape over their wrists. One had blood in her hair. The other
