Chapter 3 - A Shield of Fur and Iron
Lena didn’t move. She couldn’t. Fear had paralyzed her from the spine out, rooting her small frame into the cracked vinyl of the booth.
Marcus stepped closer, reaching a thick, calloused hand across the formica table to grab her wrist—the very same wrist encircled by dark, yellowing contusions.
“I said move,” Marcus barked.
Before his fingers could close within six inches of her sleeve, Rex came out from under the table.
It was not an explosion of wild barking; it was an execution of lethal discipline. Rex rose onto his forepaws, placing his massive chest directly between Marcus’s reaching arm and the girl. His snout hovered inches from Marcus’s knuckles. His lips peeled all the way back, revealing forty-two clean, devastating teeth, while a low, vibrating growl rumbled from the depths of his diaphragm. It was the kind of sound that made a man feel the fragility of his own pulse.
Marcus jerked his hand back as if he’d touched a live wire. His face flushed bright red, embarrassment and anger colliding across his forehead.
“Control your damn mutt, mister,” Marcus snarled, his gaze snapping to me for the first time.
I hadn't moved an inch. My hands rested flat on the laminate table, completely relaxed, shoulders dropped, ready to pivot at the slightest twitch of his right pocket.
“My dog is entirely under control,” I replied evenly. “He doesn't like people reaching into other folks' personal space. Neither do I.”
Marcus sneered, puffing his chest out. He was used to intimidating people—women, children, folks who didn't want trouble in a forgotten highway town. “She’s my kid. She’s nine years old, she’s got half a leg, and she ran off in the middle of a blizzard. You’re harboring a runaway. That’s a felony in this county, pal.”
“I’m not your kid!” Lena’s voice cracked through the diner, sharp and desperate. “You locked me in the cellar! You told me you were going to sell Mom’s car and leave me there!”
The two long-haul truckers sitting at the counter turned their stools around. The waitress, an older woman with silver hair named Martha, paused with a coffee pot suspended over a ceramic mug. The entire room went dead silent, save for the howling gale outside.
Marcus’s jaw worked furiously. He realized he’d lost control of the room, and men who rule through terror unravel quickly when the lights are turned on them.
“She’s confused,” Marcus said, raising his hands in a mock gesture of surrender to the room, though his eyes burned with murder. “She’s off her medication. Her mother passed a few weeks back and the girl’s been having psychotic episodes. Look at her—she’s hysterical.”
He leaned down slightly, lowering his voice into a sharp hiss meant only for my ears. “Give me the girl, soldier boy, or this night is going to end very badly for you.”
May you like
I looked at the grease on his collar, the faint smell of stale bourbon coming off his breath, and the unmistakable outline of a snub-nosed revolver weighing down his right coat pocket.
“You’ve got ten seconds to walk back out into that snow,” I told him, keeping my voice deadpan, completely devoid of fear. “Because if Rex decides you’re an active threat, there isn’t an orthopedic surgeon within fifty miles who’ll be able to piece your arm back together.”
