Page 64 of A Bloom in Winter

She ran before she could think better of it—

And skidded around a candy display just in time to see Mayhem throw his body at a human man who had a gun pointed at a woman behind the pharmacy counter.

“Hemmy!” Mahrci raced forward.

Except she stopped as her male focused on another man with a weapon. With the roar in her ears, she couldn’t hear what was being said between the two—but she knew what he was doing as soon as the perpetrator put down his gun, pushed it across the floor, and then just stood there, as if he’d been shackled to the spot.

The woman who’d been in charge of the self-scan checkout rushed by. “I’ve called the police! They’re coming!”

And then from the back of the store, a male voice: “Off-duty PPD!”

From out of the frozen foods section, a man in blue jeans and a navy blue parka shot forward. Along the way, he ditched his cart so that the thing rolled into a display of toiletries and L’Oréal cosmetics—but on the fly, he managed to grab two extension cords off a pop-up bin marked “Household Essentials.”

He ripped the packaging off and jumped in behind the man who was still on his feet.

“You’re under arrest.” The cop grabbed one arm and pulled it to the small of the robber’s back. Then he took the other. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against . . .”

As the cord got wrapped around those wrists fast, Hemmy shifted his position and brought the man underneath him up to a standing position.

“Cord me,” he said as he held out a hand.

The cop tossed the other extension pack over, and within moments, Hemmy had wound things up and tied the ends together.

“He saved us,” the pharmacist said as she pointed at Hemmy. “He made sure we were safe!”

“It’s true,” the checkout lady said. “He told me to call nine-one-one.”

The off-duty cop nodded. “Fast thinking. Good job—”

Off in the distance, the sounds of sirens grew louder and louder. And then a pair of women in uniform jogged in.

As the humans all started talking at once—the two who were detained each protesting that it was the other guy’s fault, the cops telling everybody to take a deep breath, the supermarket workers explaining everything—Hemmy looked over, and Mahrci’s first thought was to run to him. Instead, she held herself in place and lifted her hand in a stupid “hi.”

“Happy to hand this guy over,” he said to the cop who stepped in to take his place. “And we’ll go wait over there to get our statements taken, if that’s okay?”

“Thank you,” the female cop replied. “That’d be great.”

Mahrci couldn’t help but run her eyes up and down as Hemmy approached her. Except there had been no shots fired, he wasn’t bleeding, and he probably didn’t have anything more than a bruise on an elbow or a knee from the takedown.

“Are you okay?” she whispered.

“Yup. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

Everyone else in the store, from the deli manager and a pair of stock boys to a couple more shoppers, headed over to the drama. Meanwhile, the only two vampires in the place bucked that trend.

And one of them was on a stroll. Like there hadn’t just been a couple of AWOL humans with guns prepared to hold up the place, and he hadn’t just saved a bunch of people from an active shooter situation.

“I-I don’t know how you did that,” she stuttered.

Another couple of cops steamed by them, hands on the guns at their hips, eyes trained on the pharmacy department.

“I wish you’d stayed outside.” He shook his head. “You could have gotten hurt.”

“The same’s true for you.”

Hemmy made a dismissive sound. “I’m fine. I’m always fine.”

As they came up to their cart of groceries, he held his finger up. “One sec.”

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