Oh, just a super-sketchy one.

“Well, if I ever need a kidney hastily removed for sale, I guess I know where to go …” you mumble to yourself as you step out of your car. “Eva better be right about this.” Staring up at the pawn shop’s sign, an old, rusted green thing clearly a relic of the late 50’s, you check your phone to make sure this is the right place one more time. Unfortunately, both your GPS and the ancient signage clearly state “The Last Stop.”

While the boarded-up, taped-over windows aren’t encouraging, nor are the metal bars in front of them, it’s really just the part of town that’s making you nervous. Things have been bad here for a while now. Since Northwoods started to get built up, heavily influenced by your school’s president, people were getting shoved out. Gentrified areas were too expensive for the people who’d been living there to stay in, forcing them to leave … and a lot of them had ended up in Redfield. Redfield wasn’t the bad part of town when it started, not really. Just very historical, the core area of where the city was founded, and a lot of multi-generational families still occupied it who could trace their lineages back to the beginning.

The historical importance and strong local resistance kept Redfield from being turned into some boutique store-laden, brewery-filled, trendy hot-spot, but the unintended consequence was that it became one of the last affordable areas in the entire city. Not THE last, mind, but the most central and closest to the most areas people had to abandon to the oncoming tide of development. Class tension was at a fever pitch all over Northwoods, but Redfield had it worst. The most bitter citizens feeling betrayed by their own city, neighborhood veterans resisting (mostly nobly) the consumption of Northwoods by Workwick’s shadow and (considerably less nobly) the “riff-raff,” moving into their precious home, and the insistent weight of the city’s leadership pushing for all of them to just GIVE UP, ALREADY! You think back to all the recent reports of robberies, muggings, the hard spike in police **** … it’s hard not to feel on-edge in the middle of that.

But if it’s this or a bunch of people die/become brainslaves because of you, suck it up.

A small bell rings when you step through the door into the dimly-lit shop. The shelves don’t seem to be organized in the slightest, replete with everything from creepy dolls to wedding rings to probably-badly-made samurai swords. That aside, it’s fairly clean, dust swept clear of the haphazard displays and a sense that, while you can’t see it, there’s a system to the insanity cluttered before you. Making your way across the room, you end up standing in front of an older man seated behind the desk.

“Buying or selling?” he asks. His voice is low, gruff, and unmistakably tired. If you have to guess, he’s in his mid-sixties, skin wrinkled, but ruddy. The way he looks at you over his glasses (and the book in his lap, something old and weathered) suggests the plain spectacles are just for reading, while you find yourself surprised by his eyes. In contrast with the aged flannel shirt, naturally faded, baggy jeans, and exhausted posture, his blue eyes are sharp and intense. Along with his carefully-maintained white beard and bald head, it gives the impression that he’s seen enough to know everything about you at a glance.

“Um, buying?” you manage to say, trying not to be intimidated by this not-particularly imposing man who you’re pretty sure is only about as tall as you (though you are a bit tall for a lady). You affect your best impression of a valley girl, wanting to make sure there’s no reason for him to be suspicious of you. “I just heard this was the best place in the city to go if you need something authentically antique. My roommate and I were just looking for something to bring our design choices together.”

“Nope,” he answers you flatly, looking back down at his book.

“I’m sorry?”

“You’re not buying,” he sighs without looking up. “Don’t have what you’re looking for, sorry.”

“I didn’t even tell you what I’m looking for!” Seriously, the fuck?

“Yeah, but we don’t sell home décor here. We sell stuff.” He looks up and gestures to the piles of whatnots and knick-knacks. “So, if you’re looking for decoration, you’re out of luck. If you’re looking for stuff, we can talk. But you already told me you’re not, so here we are.”

“Why can’t stuff be stylish?”

“Because the stuff I sell isn’t. Sorry for the inconvenience.” He … doesn’t sound sorry. You fix your eyes on his very intentionally, considering just making him. “You don’t want to do that.”

The question prompted by the cold shot up your spine at his words dies on your lips as you hear the bell ring again. You wheel around, seeing three men entering the shop. One of them is dressed immaculately and carrying a briefcase in his left hand, but it’s hard to focus on with the pistol clutched in his right. The other two men aren’t quite indistinguishable, but they’re notably taller and more powerfully-built. That, and both of them are dressed more casually while openly carrying what look to be rifles. Because of course they are. It’s not like your night’s going to get BETTER.

“Kenneth!” the shorter man says with a grin. “How’s tricks?”

“Slow,” he answers calmly, but you can see the old man’s grip on his book tightening. It’s a lot more relaxed than you look, you’re sure. On the other hand, they’re just guns. Not like you have any vitals left to damage. Though on the OTHER other hand, while Kenneth might be coming off like an asshole (and kind of a scary one), you didn’t have “watch a senior citizen get gunned down in cold blood,” on your “goals,” list for tonight. “You want something,” he states to the man in the doorway as his goons close it behind him. There’s no hint of a question to it.

“Just what we talked about earlier, Kenny,” he continues, moving halfway into the shop as one of the men stands at the door and the other follows closely behind him. “Wanted to come on by, see if you’ve had time to think about it. That, and elaborate on the terms of declining a seventh time. We HAVE tried to be polite about this, Ken.”

“I don’t care of ultimatums,” the old man almost snarls, sliding the book under the counter just out of view. You can see sweat forming on his forehead even though he’s maintaining a solid position. “First and only warning, Nate: get out.”

“Hard to believe you’d be so callous, given present company,” the man responds coolly, gesturing to you. “It’s fine for a man to be cavalier with his own choices, but the choices of others? Tsk tsk, Ken. No deal, then?”

“What the hell do you want from him?” you ask, cutting off Kenneth’s answer. At the very least, you can stall. Kenneth may be regarding you as some kind of threat, may even know specifically how, but this Nate guy and his muscle hardly seem to notice you’re there except as obvious collateral. “I mean, I’m in the middle of this now, seems kind of rude not to let me know what I might be getting shot for.”

“Oh, my employers are just very anxious to help Mr. Harper here get out of a bad situation with some cash in-hand.” He thumbs the hammer back on his gun, regarding you for a moment. “See, he’s holding a valuable plot of land here, and we’d love to revitalize this community like the rest of the city. Northwoods is up-and-coming, after all. Redfield will understand that eventually. It’d just be MUCH easier if Ken would accept our generous offer. Before we’re **** to make another one.”

“You’re developers.”

“I prefer to see myself as a facilitator of meaningful change!” He fiddles with the trigger for a moment, lost in thought, then continues. “You know, it’d be an awful blow to Redfield to see a lovely, young college girl get killed in a dingy corner like this. Probably really hit its position. Of course, it’d also be a pretty solid win to have one as an eye-witness to an unstable, old dinosaur’s last-ditch, violent attempt keep the world as backwards as he is.” He lifts the briefcase slightly at you. “What do you think, young lady? Either of those sound more compelling to you?”