“Trying to get somewhere?” I asked.
She blushed. “I may have a potential date lined up. Or, I was supposed to, at least until Alex called out and I had to close. I told him I would let him know if I got out early enough.” She stared down at her watch again.
“Cute?” I asked.
“The cutest,” Liv gushed, turning a brilliant pink. “Like, we’re talking Adonis-levels of attractive here. And I’m going to miss it because Jenson forces two people to do a one-person job. And I just know that he’s going to find some other girl if I miss out tonight.”
I bit back my laugh. “We can’t have that. You go on,” I said, flicking my hand.
“Are you sure?” I heard the hesitation even as her eyes sparked with hope.
“Yeah, yeah. It’s not like closing is that difficult. I think the only reason Jenson has two people close is because he’s paranoid one of us is going to skim from the register. Which, considering what he pays us, I wouldn’t blame any of us for doing. But yeah. I’ll be fine.”
Liv squealed and flung her arms around me. “Oh my God, you’re the best,” she said, jumping up and down, jostling me with every bounce.
“Just remember that next time I need you to cover a shift,” I teased as she continued to jostle me, her feet kept bounding up and down.
“Absolutely,” she said, stepping back, her hair a little mussed from all her jumping. “Okay, I’ve got to run. Thank you again.”
I don’t think I had ever seen her punch out and race out the door so fast.
Laughing and shaking my head, I kept moving through my closing routine. I mopped the floors, I wiped down the counters, I cleaned the windows. I let my mind turn off for a while as I went through the age-old ritual. For a while, I didn’t have to think about Sam or how confused I was when it came to him. I didn’t have to think about how I apparently had powers. I could just be me for a few minutes.
The bell chimed cheerily through the store. I stiffened even as I cringed. Shoot. I’d forgotten to lock it.
Taking in a deep breath, I forced a smile onto my face and turned away from the shelf, can still in hand as I rose to my feet.
Two large shifters I had never seen before strutted into the store. The smile on my face froze. Unease prickled up my spine as their gaze swept the area and landed on me. I got to my feet, mind racing as my intuition screamed at me that something was very, very wrong.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “We’re closed.”
The first shifter, one with dark hair and a scar running along his chin, gave a casual shrug. “The door was open, the lights were on. That seems pretty open to me. What about you, Reg?”
Reg, the one with shaggy brown hair, kept his eyes locked on me as he said, “Absolutely.”
“It’s after ten,” I said, trying to sound firm despite the fact that each of these shifters outweighed me by at least a hundredpounds of muscle, and my head didn’t reach their collarbones. “We’re closed. Come back in the morning.”
“We’ll leave once you empty the register for us,” the first one said.
I gave a half-laugh that died in my throat when they stepped toward me again.
“Trust me, doll. Peter’s not the kind to joke,” Reg said. “You should just give us what we want before things get ugly.”
I glanced at both of them, sizing them up. They didn’t have guns, but they didn’t need them. Already, I could see one of them lengthening their fingers into sharp claws, their teeth turning into fangs as they leered down at me.
I still didn’t move. Then Peter’s smile vanished, and he grabbed my bicep. I winced as his claws pressed against my flesh, not breaking the skin, but a reminder that they could at any second.
“Come on,” he growled, dragging me over to the register.
One of Jenson’s saving graces was that he had always told us not to be heroes when it came to robberies. The store was insured, and he didn’t want to have to deal with that sort of mess. Best to let the dangerous guy get what he wanted and leave without adding a body to the mix.
He let go of me, hovering over me as I opened it. When it chimed open, he lunged forward and grabbed fistfuls of cash, as did Reg.
“Not a bad haul,” Reg said, counting through his cash. Peter grunted in agreement. Both of them were still blocking my exit, leaving only a sliver of a gap that I could pass through.
“You have what you want. Now get the hell out,” I snarled.
Peter looked down at me with amusement. “You know, we only came in to rob the place,” he said, almost conversationally. “But that was before I saw you. How about it, sweetheart? Wanna have a bit of fun?”
