“Back off, White Power Barbie,” Atlanta says, drawing back the hammer on the gun.

John Elvis says, “Whoa.”

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” Mitchell says. “Poking a stick into a den of snakes.”

“Poke-poke, motherfuckers.” Atlanta pulls the trigger.

The Skank falls sideways. Not because she’s shot, but because she’s clutching her ear—after all, the gun went off only inches from her head.

What is shot is one of the pictures on the wall. Some hunter with a dead bear. Glass drops to the concrete, then the frame and photo follow with a clatter.

It had hung only a foot from Mitchell Erickson’s head.

He drops to his knees. Fetal position. One hand out as if it could stop a bullet with the flat of his palm.

John Elvis skulks to the opposite corner and stays there, stiff and still as a broom. An epic task for a tweaker, she figures.

Atlanta knows what’s coming next, so she levels the gun at the door to Orly Erickson’s office. Orly’s the first out the door, long-barrel revolver in his hand. His position is her advantage. Because when she yells at him to freeze, he does—and his prodigious bulk blocks the door. Behind him, she can see the cop and Chris’s father, but neither of them can make a difference here, not as long as the big man stands in their way.

“You’re back,” Orly says. “And you brought a friend.”

“My mama’s friend, actually,” she says. “Put the gun down.”

“Don’t think so.”

Her arm straightens, as if to ready for recoil. “I said, gun down.”

Orly bites his lip, then eases the gun to the floor.

“You going to shoot me?” he asks. “Shoot all of us? Shoot the police officer standing behind me who, even now, has a service weapon in his hand? This is a gun club, little girl. Give us ten, fifteen seconds and we’ll all have fingers around triggers.”

Given the number of guns hanging on walls, he’s probably right. Not that it matters.

“You’re the only one I care about,” she says. “I’m not afraid of anybody here. Because you’re not going to let anybody get uppity with their trigger fingers. They do, you’re a dead man. And all this will be exposed.”

“I don’t care about being exposed. Who I am and what I believe is not a hidden quantity.”

“Even still, I suspect you don’t want your brains exposed with a ventilating bullet. Am I right?”

He says nothing. Answer, confirmed.

“I want the ring,” she says.

“The ring. My ring?”

She sneers. “What ring d’you think I’m talking about? The one around Saturn? The one the little hobbit carries? I’m saying I want the one with the ruby. The one what belonged to your daddy. That ring.”

“It’ll do you no good.”