Ellen's Arc

Chapter 27 of 45

The cellar sat quiet. The beast was buried, the food was inside, and Ellen had her walls back. She climbed to the lobby and found Stark waiting by the door, his armor still smoking. Thorn stood beside him, hammer resting on his shoulder. They had fought her fire and won it. But Ellen knew a hard fact. These two men would leave, and Cade might leave with them. When they did, six women would have no one but her. "You're going," Ellen said. "All of you. And when the next raider comes, my women are alone." Stark's helmet turned toward her. "Not my job to babysit a hotel." "Then it stays a target," Ellen said. "You cleared the beast. You leave, and someone else walks in through that road. I need something that doesn't fly off when you get bored." Thorn set the hammer down. The floor thumped. "The road is your problem," he said. "One way in. Close it and no one comes." Ellen looked at the single door, the single road beyond it. She had six rifles in the cabinet and six women who could learn to hold them. What she lacked was a wall that didn't need a hero standing on it. "Then teach them," she said. She turned to Cade. "You count exits in every room. Teach my women to do the same. Show them the rifles, the angles, the road. If you all leave tomorrow, they hold this place themselves." Cade studied the door a long moment. "Takes days," he said. "We have food for a month," Ellen said. "We have days." Stark stepped toward the door. "I don't do drills." He stopped. "But the road's the weak point. Wire it. I've got charges in the wagon that armed Vincent left. Bury them at the choke. One switch inside. Anyone comes up that road, they don't come twice." He said it flat, then went silent, the topic closed. Ellen felt the shift. A wired road did not fly away. A woman with a rifle did not vanish at dawn. They worked through the day. Cade lined the six women along the third-floor windows and made each one name her firing lane. Stark buried charges at the narrow point of the road and ran a wire to a switch by the door. Thorn dragged stone across the lobby and built a second barrier behind the first. By dusk it was done. Ellen stood at the door and looked out at the one road. The charges waited under the dust. Six women knew their windows. The switch sat at her hand. "We leave at first light," Stark said. "Beast's dead. Nothing else here I want." "Go," Ellen said. "They can hold it now." She had built a defense that stayed when the men left. But high in the hotel, the Mandarin still walked the upper floors, and no wired road reached him.