Above the Law

Chapter Nine

The man in the mask had been a no show for two weeks. Eden worked out by herself, sit-ups and push-ups, but nothing useful. Nothing practical. She was sure it had to do with the broken ribs, stab wound, and gunshot her father obtained, but she'd asked the masked man to do that. She literally asked him to do that to her father, so he couldn't think she'd be mad at him for living up to his end of the deal. But could he be mad at her for asking?

Or was he simply staying away because of Detective Yates and all the questions he'd been bombarding her with? After Eden had taken Lily to the hospital to see their dad, she found Yates on her steps again. Though his friendly manor had been dropped and it was straight to business from the moment he stood up. The hardness in his voice was gone, replaced with impassiveness. She thought she deserved that though; he'd been nice to her and she completely shut him down.

Either way, Eden was now searching for something productive to do in the masked man's absence. She'd thought about getting self-defense classes, but she knew she already had the basics—and more. She thought she was good on defense, it was offense she needed. It was offense she needed to be on in bad situations, not defense. The masked man had never taught her so much as to throw a good punch. She thought about picking a fight with Justin, see how he punched, what angles he came in from, but he wasn't taking the bait.

She contemplated her options as she lay on her bed, staring up at her ceiling with unfocused eyes. She bit down on her bottom lip as she thought about the wooden chest under her bed. She sat up and swung her legs off the bed, then sat crisscross on the cold wooden floors and peered under the bed at the box, as if she thought being closer to it would help make up her mind. Her brows were drawn together and her bottom lip caught between her teeth.

Drew coughed next door and smell of pot wafted through her room. She reached her hands out slowly and slid the box out from beneath the old mattress. The wood was soft and worn, yet some rough corners still gave her splinters. Drew let out a bark of laughter and she sighed quietly, then lifted the lid and shoved her hand inside and removed a fistful of money. She counted the bills quietly on the floor and stopped at two hundred, putting the rest back into the chest.

She shoved her box back under her bed, stood and placed her money in her jean pockets, then headed for the door. Two-hundred isn't even a dent, she told herself, though her stash was slowly dwindling to nothing as it was.

Eden walked the three and a half miles to the shooting range, determination written on her face. True, the man in the mask had said that bullets were easily traced, but she wasn't planning on shooting people for the sake of shooting them. She was, however, planning on being able to shoot someone if it ever came to that.

Her life over theirs.

Eden's hands shook slightly as she filled out the paperwork, the nervousness was bubbling up inside her. She'd never even held a gun, let alone shot one. The man behind the counter was eyeing her quietly, she glanced up at him, eyes wide. "Can I see some ID?" he asked skeptically.

"Um. Yeah." She pushed her hair out of her face and fumbled for her wallet, cursing herself for not bringing her fake ID.

He folded his arms over his chest. "Okay, kid. Are you twenty-one or not?"

She looked up again, her green eyes even wider than before. "No."

He turned around and pointed at a sigh. "What does that say?"

She chewed her lip and looked up at her sigh behind the man. "'No persons under the age of twenty-one without parent or legal guardian,'" Eden read.