At A Bar Called O'Malley's #2

Scott and Mara push into O'Malley's through the back entrance, grinding cannery grit off their boots. The pub is quiet in a way that feels wrong, like it is listening.

Patrick stands near the kitchen pass, tense and ready, while Darcy keeps close to the bar. Both of them look from Scott to Mara, then toward the front windows.

Outside, a black sedan idles across the street in the fog. Its headlights wash the glass in pale bars, then linger there, unmoving.

The words hang in the still air. Scott has the room, the warning, and the choice to make the next move before the sedan decides for him.

Scott snaps the order low and sharp, and the room moves with it. Patrick kills the overhead lights by the kitchen pass, and Darcy ducks behind the bar as the front windows flash with fogged headlights.

The dark catches the sedan’s beams and breaks them into pale stripes across the floor. Scott gets everyone down in time, but the tap line answers with a sharp ticking pop, and a glass on the bar skitters from the vibration.

Patrick slides farther behind the bar, breathing fast. Darcy plants herself beside the register, eyes on the windows, while the service gate still gapes open in the rear wall like a wound.

Outside, the convoy light sweeps once more across the fogged glass, then pauses as if someone has spotted the blackout and is deciding what to do next.