2. Cara #2
"I don't know. Stay here." She follows anyway, because of course she does.
Emily's at the top of the stairs, crying. "He's outside. There's a man outside my window."
Knox's whole posture changes. "Where?"
"My room."
I catch his arm before he reaches for the radio. "Wait. She's on the second floor. Nobody can see through that window from the ground unless they're right up against the house."
Understanding hits him hard enough that his jaw sets. He keys the radio anyway. "Zip, I need eyes on the women's house, north side, second floor."
It comes back a minute later, and I already know before Zip finishes talking. Maintenance for the guttering. The two men on ladders were authorized yesterday by Vulture, and somebody was supposed to tell the house and didn't.
Emily's still shaking when I get to her, her hand locking around mine, and finding out the danger wasn't real doesn't switch her fear off. Her body already believed it. Her heart's still racing, her hands are cold.
"He's not coming inside," I tell her.
"I know." She is trembling against me.
"You didn't know someone would be outside the window. That's why it scared you. You didn't do anything wrong."
Her breath catches. "I thought they found us."
Sarah sits beside her on the bottom step. "We're here."
I look at Knox, and his face has gone grim, I’ve never seen that look on him before. "They should have been told," he says.
"Yeah." Such a small word, but it means so much right now.
"Every woman in this house should know before somebody comes onto the property. Never mind puts a ladder against her window." I realize that Knox is just understanding what I’ve been talking about. I’m glad he was here at this moment, even though I’m upset because Emily is so worried.
The anger rises in me faster than I can stop it.
It’s not aimed at him, but at all of them, and at a system built by men who think danger is only the thing you stop with a gun.
"You're protecting us from the people outside the gates," I say, "and half the women in this house are still learning not to be terrified of the people inside it.
If security changes, tell us. If workers are coming, tell us.
You can't keep deciding what we need to know based on whether you think it's dangerous or not. "
He doesn't argue. "You're right," he says, and it costs him nothing to say it, which is somehow the thing that gets through to me.
By the time the maintenance crew's back down off their ladders and Emily's breathing has slowed enough that Sarah can talk her into burning the silver dress in the yard, I've got a notebook in my hand and Knox is walking me toward the clubhouse whether I meant to go or not.
"Vulture wants a survivor-support update at Church," he says. "You've just given me more useful information in ten minutes than we've had in two weeks."
"I'm not going into Church."
"Didn't say you were."
I follow him anyway, because somebody has to say this out loud to the man who runs this place, and it’s better coming from me than a written report filtered through three other people first.
The clubhouse is fuller than it was an hour ago. There are cuts everywhere, coffee cups, and folders being passed between men getting ready for whatever happens behind Church's closed doors. Sterling spots me first and crosses over, his expression sharpening the second he takes in my face.
"Everything okay?"
"No." I tell him about Emily.
His face changes halfway through. "I knew about the contractors," he says. "I should have told you."
"Yes, you should."
"I didn't think."
"That's the problem." I know I sound mean, but it will take Emily a few hours to calm down and they never get to see the consequences of their actions.
He doesn't get defensive, which I respect more than an apology would've earned him. "I'll fix it."
"I don't want you to fix this one incident. We need a system." I open the notebook.
By the time Vulture comes out of his office, there are five of us around the table, Sterling, Zip, Condor, Harrier who was wandering past and inserted himself without being asked, and my three-page list has now grown to six.
He looks at the group, then at me. "Do I want to know?"
"No," Sterling says.
"Probably not," Zip adds.
I tell him anyway, and to his credit he listens without cutting in. When I finish he looks at Sterling. "Fix it." Then back at me. "Anything else?"
"A lot." I close the notebook against my chest instead of handing it over.
His eyebrows go up. "Excuse me?"
"I'm not giving you a list so you can decide which parts you agree with and tell us what you've decided for us.
" The room goes quiet enough that I can hear somebody's chair creak three tables over.
Apparently people don't say no to Vulture often.
I keep going before self-preservation catches up with me.
"You've done an incredible job keeping everyone physically safe.
You're still making decisions for women who've spent years having decisions made for them.
If this is supposed to help them rebuild, they need a voice in how it works. "
He studies me for a long moment, and whatever he's thinking, his face gives away nothing. Then he nods. "I agree."
My shoulders come down an inch.
"We'll set up a meeting," he says. "Women who want to be involved, can be. Nobody gets pushed."
"Good." That is more than I expected.
A door opens behind him and Falcon steps out of the office.
Our eyes meet, and I don't know what Vulture said to him in there, but something's different.
He still looks like a man carrying too much, but he's here, with his cut on, his VP patch sitting square over his chest, and when Vulture calls Church in five minutes, Falcon doesn't look toward the exit.
He looks at the table. At his brothers. Then at me.
I don't smile. Neither does he. It’s just a small nod each, and that's enough for now, because this morning I asked him to show up, and he did, and somewhere in the middle of that I think I found something I need to show up for too.
Not Falcon. Not yet. But this, the women, the house, and the strange, complicated family building itself around us whether any of us planned it or not.
He stops beside me on his way to Church. "Everything okay?"
"Not exactly."
His expression hardens instantly. "What happened?"
"We handled it."
The word surprises both of us. Not I. We. His gaze moves over the men at the table, then back to me, he doesn't push for details, and he doesn't try to take it over. He just accepts the answer, and that's new too.
"Go," I tell him. "You're going to be late."
The corner of his mouth lifts. "Bossy."
"You used to like that." The words are out before I can stop them, and something in his eyes changes so fast I feel it land in my chest before I understand what I've done.
Heat moves through me quick enough that I almost step back. Almost.
"I still do," he says, quiet enough that it's just for me, and then he turns and walks into Church, and I stand there staring after the closed door for a lot longer than the moment deserves.
Harrier clears his throat behind me. I turn slow. He's grinning.
"Don’t say one word,” I tell him.
"Didn't say shit." He holds up both hands, entirely unconvincing.
I pick up my notebook. My face is burning, my heart's going faster than it has any business going, and somewhere behind that door Falcon is finally taking his seat among his brothers again.
I've got my own work now, for the first time since I got here, and that thought feels good in a way I'm not ready to name yet.
It feels like the beginning of something that belongs to me.