Chapter 15: Not Like This

Kirk's POV

I lost sight of her for the length of one breath, and that was all it took.

The chairman was shaking my hand, and two MPs were walking Ansel toward the loading dock.

Ginny went out the side door for her coat.

The door swung shut, and dread seized me.

"Excuse me, sir," I said to the chairman, and I walked.

Then I ran.

The coat-check hall was empty, with a single ticket on the floor.

A door stood open on the parking garage, and I heard a man's voice, low and pleased.

"Quiet, Gin. You're good at quiet."

I came around the concrete pillar.

Ansel had her arm wrenched up behind her back and his other hand clamped over her mouth.

One of his escort lay on the loading ramp, holding his jaw.

Ginny's eyes found me over his hand.

She was not crying.

She was furious, and she bit down on his palm as hard as she could.

He swore and jerked his hand away and slammed her against the pillar.

I heard her head hit the concrete.

I do not remember crossing the garage.

I remember Ansel's collar in my fist and the sound his back made on the wall.

He was a big man and a trained one, and he got an elbow into my ribs.

It was a good elbow, and I did not feel it.

I put him on the floor and set my knee between his shoulder blades, and I had his hair wrapped in my hand.

"Kirk."

His face was an inch from the concrete.

I could have done it.

I want that written down somewhere, by me: I wanted it, and I knew exactly how.

For forty seconds on a church lawn I had watched this man dose a cup, and I had let myself believe it was sugar.

"Kirk," Ginny said again, closer. "Look at me."

I looked up.

She stood over us with her dress torn at the shoulder and a red mark rising on her forearm.

A thread of blood ran from her hairline.

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