I look down at the mattress and wonder if I should find a better spot to hide the gun and the journal. What if they find it on me? They’ll kick me out. I shake my head. The old rules of law don’t apply in this situation. For this offense, the rules will be different. I don’t know what kind of man Paxton is. For all I know he could have me executed for something like this. I curse and smash my hand against the mattress as the footsteps come closer to my door.

“You two get these rooms, I’ll get the one at the end,” Gabe says.

A few seconds later, he raps his knuckles on my door.

“Open up!” he shouts. I stand up and walk to the door. I unlock it and Gabe pushes through the entrance. I can’t help but jump back as he comes in. “Paxton’s furious,” he whispers to me.

“Does he know anything?” I ask.

“Where is it?” he says.

“I can’t give it to you, because he’ll know I took it!”

“Where is it?” he repeats.

“Under the mattress,” I say, looking down at the floor.

Two sets of footsteps come walking toward the door, and when I look up I see two large men who I recognize as patrolmen on the outer wall. One of them wears a sleeveless shirt like a moron, even though it’s cold outside, no doubt to show off his giant muscles. The other doesn’t seem quite as dumb, but still big and burly, with his beard falling to the top of his chest.

“Those two rooms are empty, boss,” beardy says. “No one is living there.”

“Boss?” I ask Gabe, unable to contain my grin.

He shakes his head and looks at the two guards. “You,” he points to beardy, “check in the bathroom. You check the couch, I’ll check the bed.”

“You got it,” sleeveless answers.

Gabe sighs and walks to the side of my bed. His hair is pulled back today and the bags under his eyes make it seem like he didn’t get much sleep last night. I wonder if I look the same. I didn’t sleep much at all: listening to Paxton bark out orders, listening to the guards talk about their theories of what might be going on. It actually made for quite an entertaining experience. The conversations ranged from Paxton seeing a ghost to the possibility of there being greyskins inside the town. But the most popular theory was that Paxton had slept so little that he had only thought he saw something. Of course, I’m sure by now they all know that a journal and gun were stolen, so those theories went out the window.