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I twirled around. Lance was standing there, holding the tape gun like normal, looking scared and mad. I think scared was winning.

“What the fuck are you doing? Are you shipping pills?” I screeched. “From my warehouse?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m calling the cops,” I started to shove past him.

He stopped me. Easily. That was the first time I noticed just how big he was.

“Get your hands off me, you asshole. You think you can come into my place of business and taint it with a drug operation? Is that what you think you can do?”

“Uhm. What’s taint?”

“Answer the question. What would your Mama think of this?”

“Don’t bring my Mama into this.” He scowled.

“You’re nothing but a pathetic drug dealer.”

“I don’t deal drugs. I would never do that. I just ship packages.”

“Oh God. Do you believe that?! That means you’re stupid as well as culpable.”

“Don’t call me stupid.”

“How about culpable and imbecilic?”

“I don’t know what those words mean.”

“They mean you’re stupid.” I yanked my arm, hard, surprising him. He loosened his grip and I shook it off and took two steps back. Then I saw him lifting the tape gun…

Aw shit.

My head was killing me. I couldn’t see. I could barely breathe.

What in the hell happened?

“You want me to what?”

“We’re going to need to get her out of here, then kill her. If she talks, we’re both dead.”

I opened my eyes and saw a skinny guy with pockmarks looking up at Lance.

He had a gun tucked into his waistband.

I couldn’t move my arms, but I could move my legs. I was only shrink-wrapped to my waist, and he’d covered my mouth. My eyes had been shut because of the knock on my head. Apparently, you can do real damage with a tape gun if you hit someone just right—who knew?

“But we can’t actually shoot someone,” Lance protested. “That’s murder.”

“I know what it is, asswipe. It’s what’s necessary.”

I was under the table next to the shrink wrap station. Made sense, since I was fucking shrink-wrapped!

“Arnie, we are not going to kill her.”

“Do you know what is going to happen to us if we don’t?”

I watched as Lance started to cry.