A/N: Whoo doggie! This one was a toughie, I have to say. Please let me know how it turned out, 'cause I genuinely don't know. Candle wax!

P.S. If you're new, go ahead and read the others why don't ya. At the very least, read the last chapter so this makes a shred of sense. Anyway, on with the reading!

Book One – Chapter Twelve

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“Mal? Mal, is something wrong?” the Baron asked. He asked this question twice, since Mal didn’t answer the first time. The second time he asked, he becoming understandingly unnerved. The Baron von Jeffery didn’t respond very well to external pressure.

Mal answered, but his attention remained focused on what was happening behind the locked door.

“I think… someone’s at the door,” he said, slowly creeping his away to the door.

He put himself parallel with the floor, and act that created more than a little strain on his muscles, and pushed his ear against the thin crack where the door met the wall. His heart started gaining speed, and he couldn’t make out most of the words coming from the front door, but he did hear James distinctly say a word that ceased his breathing for a second.

“Sheriff.”

“Oh…小狗在酸裡,” Mal muttered.

“Uh, hey, Mal?” The Baron asked, now visibly shaking and glancing side-to-side. “Wh-what’s goin’ on?”

“Shh!” Mal waved him away, trying to bring his voice lower.

"I think there’s a sheriff at the door.”

“Oh,” the Baron said, his eyes wide and his voice slowly ascending to a falsetto. “Well. Hey, I didn’t mention this before ‘cause I thought it was a given, but you really shouldn’t be caught with those coordinates I’m sendin’ ya.”

“I don’t really wanna be caught, period, Jeff.”

Mal started to feel a headache coming along. A weird one. It seemed to buzz more than pound. But Mal quickly decided that deciding on adjectives for a migraine was not the best use of his current time.

He moved his hand swiftly to his gun