He’d followed her home before. Things happened in Mary's part of town, sometimes terrible things. Animals went missing, people got robbed, and unless they were teenagers who thought nothing could happen to them, no one walked alone at night. She wandered from the protection of her friends, and now it was time to pay for laughing at him. The lion stepped out from behind the bushes.

After forty-two years, it was time to retire. He'd had so many girls that they blended together. But Morgan with those moss green eyes peppered with flecks of gold, she'd be his grand finale.

"One Last Call"

by Ava Page