Finally, Brody and the other three giants realized that I wasn’t going to come out, and they decided to come in after me. I held my position behind the support beam, the bottle and cigarette lighter still in my hands, with the three other bottles all in a neat row on the railing in front of me.

   The broken doors creaked open, and a lone black hat appeared. I tensed, but then I realized that it was only a hat on a stick that someone, probably Brody, was waving around.

   Someone around here had watched a few too many Western movies.

   Still, I’d give the giants credit for trying to get me to make the first move and give myself away. But I’d been doing this for a long, long time, and a hat on a stick wasn’t going to fool me, so I held my position and waited for them to come inside.

   A minute passed, then two, then three, and still the giants stayed outside. Finally, though, one of them let out a frustrated snarl and threw the hat and stick out into the middle of the saloon. The stick clattered to the floor, while the hat spun around and around before finally settling down.

   I stayed in place, the same as before. I’d seen more than a few Westerns myself, thanks to Sophia, who loved them, and there was a reason why people always said not to shoot until you saw the whites of your enemies’ eyes.

   That meant that they were finally close enough for you to kill them.

   Slowly, the doors swung open, and all four of the giants crept inside, guns up and ready to fire. I thought that Brody might be leading them, but he was the last to enter the saloon. Smart. Very smart. I wondered if his men realized that he’d set them up to walk into my trap and die first. Probably not.

   The four giants tiptoed forward, and they looked right and left, examining the saloon. But they only saw empty chairs, and they didn’t pay any attention to the liquor bottles that I’d positioned like centerpieces on some of the tables when I’d first broken in here. I could have cracked open some of the bottles and doused everything in alcohol, but the giants might have smelled that, and I didn’t want them to realize exactly what they were walking into until it was too late.

   Brody stepped forward and stabbed his finger at the bar, thinking that I was hiding back there. He held up his gun and waved it at the other men in a clear signal. They all nodded, then raised their own weapons, took aim at the bar, and started firing.

   Crack!

   Crack! Crack!

   Crack! Crack! Crack!

   Brody and his men shot up the bar, putting hole after hole into the thick, heavy wood. Splinters flew through the air, and the mirrored shelves and bottles of liquor behind the counter shattered, spewing glass everywhere. Someone couldn’t hit the broad side of the bar.

   One by one, the giants emptied their guns, although they all quickly reloaded their weapons. For a moment, everything was eerily quiet. The stench of gunpowder filled the air, along with the harsh, caustic scent of all the spilled booze.

   Finally, Brody pointed his gun at the bar again. “Check it!” he hissed at the lead giant.

   The other man swallowed, reached up, and adjusted his hat, tipping it back a little on his forehead. He also checked his gun, making sure that it was fully loaded again, and raised the weapon up into a firing position. Then he drew in a breath and eased forward, surprisingly quiet for such a large man. He moved closer to the bar . . . and closer . . . and closer still. . . .

   Behind him, the other two giants spread out, with Brody taking up a position closest to the double doors. All three men aimed their guns at the bar, expecting me to pop up from behind the long slab of wood at any moment. But I didn’t do that, and every second that passed only ratcheted up the tension. The lights might be on, but the heat wasn’t, and the December chill had already sunk into the building, making the giants’ breath steam in the air.

   The lead giant came at the bar from an angle, and he finally got close enough to stand up on his tiptoes and peer over the side. He frowned, his eyebrows creasing together, and blinked a few times, as if the empty space behind the bar confused him. After a few seconds, he surged forward, put one hand on the wood, and leaned over it, his head snapping left and right as he looked for me.

   He whipped back around to Brody. “She’s not back there!”

   Brody frowned. “What do you mean she’s not back there?”

   The giant flung his hand out. “I mean, she isn’t hiding behind the bar—”

   He never got the chance to finish his sentence.

   I clicked on the cigarette lighter, ignited the white cloth in the end of the bottle of gin that I was still holding, and tossed the whole thing down below right into the middle of the saloon.

   Whoosh!

   My makeshift Molotov cocktail exploded with a roar and a bright ball of orange-red flame.

   The giants yelled and scrambled out of the way, but I was already lighting the next bottle of gin and tossing it down on top of them. This time, my aim was better, and I hit the giant by the bar square in the chest. The bottle shattered on impact, splashing gin all over him, and the alcohol ignited instantly. The giant screamed and screamed, slapping at the flames that danced all over his body, searing his skin, but it was no use. He crashed into a table, which splintered under his weight, and did a nosedive onto the floor. All around him, the pieces of wood began to smoke as they too started to catch fire.

   Brody and the other two giants finally realized that I was on the balcony and raised their guns to fire at me. I lit my third and fourth Molotov cocktails and tossed them down in quick succession, this time aiming for two separate tables, each one with a bottle of liquor sitting in the center of it.

   Bull’s-eye.

   Both bottles landed exactly where I wanted them to, and that entire area exploded with flames, catching another of the giants by surprise. Once again, liquor splashed everywhere, and he too lit up like a Christmas tree. This giant did the smart thing and stopped, dropped, and rolled around on the floor, just like you were supposed to. But what he didn’t realize was that he was rolling around in the growing fire that was spreading around the first giant that I’d hit. So instead of putting out the flames, all the second man did was spread them around the rest of the saloon. Red-hot sparks and embers flew everywhere, and small fires sprang up among all the old, weathered wood.