Page 7 of Pack to the Wall

“I’m Tyson. We need to talk.”

The woman’s eyes rolled back and she fainted again.

This wasnotgoing well.

JANE

All I wantedto do was stay here in this warm comfortable darkness.

I’d had a horrible dream and I couldn’t believe I’d been so violent. Then again, Iwoulddo anything to protect my family. Still, shooting someone was a stretch even for me.

Yes, I’d bought a gun, but I’d never planned on using it.

It’s a deterrent. That’s what I’d told myself when I’d purchased it.

So… yeah, that had all been a dream, and now I was back in the space between sleep and waking. Soon I’d wake up and have a nice normal day.

Cold wetness splashed over me… again.

I sputtered awake. That dangerous-looking but strangely kind man from my dream knelt beside my bed… no… not my bed, the couch in the living room.

It couldn’t be. If he was here, that meant… it hadn’t been a dream. It had all been real.

“Don’t faint again, please,” the man — he’d said his name was Tyson — pleaded.

“Easy for you to say. You didn’t just kill a man!” I snapped at him, my words a bit slurred and my mind still foggy. My head ached, my world spinning.

“Not today, no, but I’ve killed before. I know it leaves a mark. Still, you don’t have time to lie down. There are things you need to know.”

Wait. He’d killed people before?

Whowasthis guy?

A biker… from the gang that had been terrorizing my street. And he was in my house. None of this made any sense.

I put a hand to my throbbing — and wet — forehead, closing my eyes for a moment. Blocking out the light helped lessen the pain shooting through my skull. Maybe letting him talk would get him to leave.

“Fine,” I grumbled. “Talk.”

I heard his grunt. He wasn’t happy. Well, screw him. My day had been far worse than his.

Tyson remained silent long enough that I cracked one eyelid to peek up at him. He gazed at the floor, combing his large hand back through waves of dark hair. Squinting with only one eye like this, he sort of looked like Jason Momoa.

Finally, he sighed, his eyes shifting back to me, and I closed my one eye again to listen.

“Do you know why your son was out there this morning?” he asked slowly.

That hadn’t been what I was expecting. “No. He’s always been impulsive and headstrong, but this… I thought I’d taught him better.”

“Apparently not,” Tyson said dryly. “Somehow your kid found out our secret.”

Secret?I didn’t like the sound of that. “What secret?” I asked.

“Do you believe in the paranormal?” he asked, but kept going, not waiting for an answer. “Let’s start a bit easier. Do you believe in God and angels, hell and demons?”

“No.” My mom had been a devout catholic and I’d gone to church as a kid, but when I’d left home, I’d left all that behind. Sundays were for shopping and laundry and cleaning.

“Ah… well… fuck.”

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