Page 11 of Falcon’s Forever

"What happened?" she asks.

"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."