Ellen's Arc

Chapter 36 of 45

Vincent kept the walls in Ellen's hands, but Din Djarin had promised to wait, and a bounty hunter who waited did not leave. By morning Ellen saw him from the third floor. He sat on a rock past the road's chokepoint, rifle across his knees, watching every door of the hotel. Her six women could not step outside. One had tried at dawn for the water barrel by the wall. The hunter had risen the second she opened the door, and she had bolted back inside white-faced. Ellen understood then. He would not charge the walls. He would starve them out. Sooner or later a woman would break, and he would take his puck. Vincent found her at the window. "He's still there," he said. He did not make it a question. "He'll sit there till we run dry," Ellen said. "We can't fight him. He'll drop anyone who steps out." Vincent watched the armored man for a long moment. "Then don't give him a target." He turned the ring on his finger. "He hunts patterns. Food, water, shelter. Break the pattern." Ellen looked at the switch by the door. Stark had wired the road's chokepoint with explosives, right where the hunter sat his rock. But he was past the blast line. She could not reach him with it. She needed him closer, or she needed him to move. She made the plan while she watched. She sent two women to the far windows with rifles. She sent one to the door with the water barrel, ordered to open it wide and stand plain in the gap. Bait. Then Ellen took the third-floor firing lane herself, rifle steadied on the sill. The door swung open. The woman stood in it. Din Djarin rose off his rock and walked forward, rifle coming up, crossing onto the road toward the open door. Toward the chokepoint. "Now," Ellen said. The woman at the door dropped flat. The two at the far windows fired into the dirt at the hunter's feet, driving him left, herding him onto the wired ground. Ellen did not shoot the man. She shot the switch cover, then screamed down the stairs. A woman below hit the trigger. The road erupted. Rock and grit blew skyward. The blast threw Din Djarin off his feet and back across the chokepoint, hard into the dirt beyond. He did not get up fast. His rifle lay ten feet from his hand. Ellen was down the stairs and out the door before the dust settled. She reached him with her knife at his visor. "You wait somewhere else," she said. "Or you don't wait at all." The hunter measured her, the knife, the guns in the windows. He gathered his rifle and stood slow. "You broke your walls to do it," he said. The chokepoint was a crater now. No deterrent left. He backed off the ruined road and was gone. Her women could step outside again. But the road lay open, and everyone hunting the hotel had just lost its lock.