“Hey!” I snapped my fingers while I snapped out the word, drawing his attention to me. The kid blinked hard a couple times as his eyes slid up to mine. I snapped my fingers in the air again. “You point that gun at me, and you are going to be very sorry, boy.”

His throat bobbed and he lowered the gun. “But the . . . wolf . . . he attacked us.”

“He’s harmless. It’s the skeletons you need to watch out for.” I grinned and the kid’s eyes impossibly widened farther.

“Skeletons?”

I shrugged. “Well, I can only vouch for Robert. He was pretty cool, but I’m guessing he was one of few good ones.”

The kid’s chest rose and fell rapidly, his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell backward, limp as a noodle. He hit the ground with a hard thud that made me grimace. “Ouch. That’s going to hurt tomorrow.”

Sarge leaned his head against my back, and I could tell from the shaking that he was laughing.

Tom stepped forward. “I was on the fence with this one. I don’t think he’ll make it through.”

I found my feet taking me forward, right into the middle of the kids. “Move.” I waved my hands at the remaining three and they parted around me. I crouched by the kid on the ground and patted his cheek. “You alive in there?”

A groan, and then his eyes slowly opened. “Mom?”

Corb snorted. “She’s old enough to be your mom. You’re right about that.”

I threw a well-aimed glare over my shoulder. “Keep it up, chuckles. I’ll teach you what a bad idea it is to fight with your elders.” I turned back to the boy. “Gawd in heaven, what are you, a teenager?”

Big blue eyes looked straight up at me. “Turned twenty today.”

“Well, happy birthday. Why are you here?” The thing was, I knew why I was here. The money that Eammon had talked about was way too good, and it would solve problems I needed solved. Gran’s house among them.

“My mom is sick,” he said. “We can’t pay for the medical bills and . . .”

My throat tightened. Stupid hormones. To be fair, sometimes I got weepy with a well-placed kitten in a tissue commercial. I cleared my throat. “Then get up. Because they are about to oust your butt for being a pansy ass.”

I helped him to his feet, and he swayed where he stood. Before he could lift the gun again, I took it from him, cleared the chamber, and popped the clip out. Corb let out a strangled noise.

I looked at him. “Didn’t know I knew guns, did you?”

His look said it all. He didn’t know much about me at all.

I shrugged. “I don’t keep them around, and Himself is lucky I didn’t.” Because I would have shot the bastard the moment I found out he’d taken Gran’s house from me. For good measure, I patted the birthday boy down and took the remainder of his weapons and ammo. “You don’t need this, not with Sarge. He’s a good boy. Well trained.”