Chapter 10: Behind Me

I walked into the loft with the manifest in my fist and a speech ready.

Eleven was standing in the middle of the floor.

She was not looking at me.

She was looking at the door, with her head tilted, and her bandaged hand held up for silence.

"Wynn," she said, very softly. "Come here."

"What?"

"Come here. Now."

The front door came off its top hinge with a crash.

Two men came through it.

One was the big man from the sedan, with the plain coat.

The other was shorter and had a roll of black tape in his hand.

"Ketteridge," the big one said. "Mr. Gantry wants you home."

"I don't know anyone by that name," I said.

He didn't even look at me.

He looked past me, at Eleven, with the flat stare of a man who'd found what he'd come for.

"Don't make it hard, ma'am."

Eleven moved.

I didn't see her cross the floor.

One second she was by the window, and the next she was between me and the men, her feet apart and her chest rising.

"Behind me," she said.

It wasn't the flat polite voice anymore.

It was lower and rougher, and it belonged to a woman who had run a boardroom.

The big man lunged.

She stepped into it and hooked his arm and drove her knee into his ribs.

He folded, grunting.

She had Dot's skillet in her left hand, the burned right hanging at her side, and I had no idea when she'd picked it up.

She swung it flat into the side of his head.

He went down.

The short one dropped the tape and grabbed me by the hair.

I yelled, and Eleven spun around, and I saw her face go absolutely white with fury.

"Take your hand off her."

"Lady, I'm just doing my job."

"You have about two seconds."

He let go of my hair.

He didn't do it because she asked him to.

He did it because her skillet was already moving.

When it was over, the two of them were out the door, one limping and one carrying the other, and the broken hinge was swinging.

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