Several customers already present lost the easy ability to stand still; their conversations faltered, their hands tightened on whatever they had been examining.
A few nearer the door took an instinctive step backward.
Others simply froze, eyes tracking toward the source of the sudden shift without fully understanding what they were looking at.
Katana stood completely still in the middle of the disheveled weapon shop.
She did not move or speak. She did not even seem to breathe.
Her eyes remained wide, but the bright spark of expectation that had been there only a moment earlier had been replaced by raw, open terror.
It was the kind of terror that does not announce itself with screams or flight, but simply freezes the body in place, holds it still, makes it wait for whatever is coming.
