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Except this girl

For the first tiht term for her With her aroohteen, ht she enty pounds too heavy, but the extra weight rounded her face and filled out her chest

Square black glasses gave her a slightly brainy air Her sandy blond hair was cropped short, and the rain outside had turned it into a mound of frizz Her dark brown eyes and pecan-colored skin whispered of soe The Cherokee still inhabited the mountains around Ashland, and more Hispanic folks came to the city every summer to pick strawberries, to season was over, lots of the rants stayed and put down roots

I continued n, and a heavy black turtleneck sweater that made her eyes seem darker than they were

Scuffed sneakers, a heavy jacket, so on her cost more than fifty bucks Which didn’t inspire confidence about her even being able to afford an assassin like the Tin Man

The words Tin Man had also gotten the others’ attention

Finn peered at the girl over the top of the financial section Sophia looked up fro for her macaroni salad

"Tin Man?" I asked "That’s a funny nairl, Violet, forced out a saze "Yeah, that’s what I thought too"

"There’s nobody here by that naht below the counter, my thumb traced over the hilt of the silverstone knife that I’d palerous as a wet kitten, but that didn’tfor someone else Maybe someone anted to hire the e Or irl breathed wrong, she was going to die where she stood

Violet chewed her lower lip For a ain But after a moment, her shoulders drooped in defeat

"Doesn’t matter," she said in a tired voice "He couldn’t have helped lanced at Finn, who shrugged He didn’t knohat to runted and turned back to her celery

"He couldn’t have helped you hat?" I called out

Curiosity So the old man had instilled in me over the years Fletcher Lane had alanted to know everything about everyone, and he’d taught me to be the saet the best of irl, Violet, turned to look at me "Oh, uot out before so at us

Chapter Five

A bullet smacked into one of the storefront s

The sharp, sudden burst of sound caught the girl’s attention

Her head snapped toward the front of the restaurant

"What was that - "

That was all the Violet got out before I darted around the counter and threwher to the floor

"Oof!"

We hit the ground hard I knocked the wind out of the girl, but I didn’t care Until I figured out what she wanted with the Tin Man, Violet Fox needed to keep breathing

I didn’t have to worry about Finn Like me, he knew exactly what that particular sound was and had heard it too nore it now Somehow, he’d already wormed under one of the tables, with several chairs further shielding hian Lane had an excellent sense of self-preservation

Sophia stood by the back counter and kept chopping celery She didn’t even look up at the crack of the gunshot

Bullets didn’t worry her Dwarves were even tougher than giants, and Sophia could take a couple bullets in the back They’d catch her in hard ic was just about the only thing that could quickly penetrate a dwarf ’s thick skin And even theany real dae

Smack!

Smack! Smack!

Three more bullets sla to judge where the shots were co

I could see the storefront s, but not who or what lay beyond thee caliber, probably a fifty, fro knehat he was doing Despite their size, the bullets formed a small, circular cluster about the size of my fist Kill shots, all of theht in the storefront glass, which kept theh into the Pork Pit itself Still, the sharp, sudden impacts had ruined the s Macabre patterns ran out froing their delicate webs through the thick glass

I shook one of my sleeves, and a knife slipped intoon the scar on h the s and decided to come inside and finish the job He’d be in for a nasty surprise One he wouldn’t recover from

With every breath, I expected more bullets to slam into the s Or for the door to be yanked open and so to ood on his threat to come back and kill me

Instead - silence