Ingrid Weaver - Seven Days To Forever

“No, I can get it.”

“Better let me. It’s a bit finicky. It’s been dropping leaves lately, so I have to be careful how I handle it.” She went to his side and leaned down to grab the edge of the pot. It had just started to slide across the carpet when she heard him make a sudden exclamation.

“Got it.”

She turned her head. He was crouched beside her, his face level with hers, so she had a close-up view of the smile that flickered over his face. It wasn’t charming or friendly like the other ones she’d seen. It was…hard.

He caught her gaze, and his smile instantly eased.

It had been a trick of the lighting, she decided. Anyone’s face could look hard when it was lit by a flashlight from below, as all kids who had ever told a ghost story around a campfire knew.

“Okay, I’m almost done.” He pushed aside her purse and the stray backpack that she’d dropped beside the plant, then slid his screwdriver back into a slot in his tool belt. “I’ll need to open up the electric box here, so for your own safety, I’m going to have to ask you to leave the apartment now.”

She sat back on her heels. A fig leaf wafted downward and settled on her lap. “What do you mean?”

“It’s routine, in case something goes wrong. The power company would be held liable if you got accidentally injured while I was doing repairs.”

“I can’t see why I need to leave. That seems excessive. I’ll just stand out of the way and—”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but you’re going to have to leave.”

“If it’s that dangerous, shouldn’t you be wearing protective clothing or something?”

“Don’t worry about me, I’m a trained professional.” He placed his hand under her elbow and gently but firmly helped her stand up.

She looked at the place where he held her arm…although, she didn’t really need to look because she felt what he was doing with every other one of her senses.

“It will only take a few minutes,” he said. “I know you’re in as much of a hurry as I am, so I’d appreciate your cooperation.”

Before she could form a reply, there was a sudden commotion from the corridor outside her apartment. Men’s voices raised in anger.

“Hey, take it easy,” someone shouted. “Watch where you’re going.”

“Get out of my way, idiot,” a heavily accented voice said.

“You could have broken my nose, slamming through the doorway like that.”

There was a spurt of muttered words that Abbie couldn’t make out. They sounded foreign.

Flynn tightened his grip on her elbow and pulled her toward the door. “Please, ma’am. You’re going to have to get out,” he said. “Right now.”

“But I can’t just—”

Something heavy slammed into her apartment door.

“Oh, my God,” she said. “They’re fighting out there. The blackout must be making them panic.”

Flynn switched direction, pulling her back toward the balcony door. “They’re coming in. We’re going to have to use the balcony.”

“What?” She tried to tug her arm free, but his fingers couldn’t be budged. “Who’s coming in? What do you mean we have to use—”

Something hit her door again. There was a sharp, splintering sound.

Flynn shoved the fig tree to one side with his foot and lunged for the balcony door. It slid open only a few inches before it was stopped dead by the broom handle Abbie kept for security in the sliding door’s track.

“What are you doing?” she shrieked.

The apartment door burst inward and slammed against the wall. Three men rushed in.

Before Abbie could draw breath to scream, Flynn spun her behind him. “Get down,” he ordered.

She hadn’t meant to obey him—she hadn’t even registered what he had said—but she stumbled over the fig tree pot and lost her footing, going down to her knees, anyway. More leaves rained down around her.

The intruders were silhouetted against the emergency lighting from the corridor. There were two short men and one tall, and the tall one appeared to be holding a…

“Oh, my God, he’s got a gun,” Abbie said.

The words had barely left her mouth when Flynn made a sudden movement. The flashlight he’d been holding hurtled across the room and struck the armed man in the wrist. His gun fell into the avocado plant.

They must be looters, Abbie thought, groping on the floor for her purse. She’d heard of looting in prolonged power failures, but she’d never dreamed it could happen so fast, and in her building.

The two short men babbled something incomprehensible and took out more guns. Abbie saw the metal gleam in the light from the hall and screamed a warning to Flynn.

Instead of retreating, Flynn advanced on the intruders. He unbuckled his tool belt, hung on to one end and whirled it through the air. The heavy, tool-laden, hard leather pouch was suddenly a weapon. It made a clinking thud as it connected with the closest man’s head.

The man crumpled and fell to the floor. Flynn swung the tool belt again, dispatching a second man with the same brutal speed.

Abbie clutched her purse to her chest and scooted backward, her shoes sliding through the leaves that now littered the carpet. What had happened to the nice, stable guy who liked children and had dinner with his parents? He was fighting off three armed looters all by himself, as if he did that kind of thing every day.

The tall man, the one Flynn had hit with the flashlight, was clawing at the avocado plant, likely looking for the gun he’d dropped.

In a move that Abbie had only seen in movies, Flynn spun around on one foot, swinging his other foot in an arc that connected with the tall man’s jaw. The looter flew sideways into the bookshelf. A geranium that had been on the top shelf wobbled and crashed on his head. He didn’t move again.

“Oh, my God.” Abbie struggled to draw a breath. Her pulse was pounding so hard, her lungs didn’t work. “Oh, my God.”

“They’re down,” Flynn said.

He stated that as if he were making a report, she thought. She ran a hand over her face, her fingers shaking. “Oh, my God!” she repeated. “What…who…?”

“Throw the switch. We’re getting out now.” Flynn rebuckled his tool belt over his hips and strode over to where she was crouching.

Switch? What switch? “But…” She shook her head, still trying to absorb what had happened. “Police. We have to call the police.”

“Later.” He leaned down and reached past her to pick something up from the floor.

It was the backpack she’d brought home from the class trip, she realized. “What are you doing?” she asked.

He slung the strap of the pack over one shoulder and reached down to grasp her arm. “Damage control,” he said.

“What? I don’t understand. Why—”

“Later,” he interrupted. He pulled her to her feet with a strength that would have surprised her two minutes ago, before she had seen him in action. “Right now we’ve got to get you out before more of them show up.”

“More? Do you mean more looters? But that’s why we have to call the police.”

He shifted his grip from her arm to her wrist and started for the door. “We’ll call them from somewhere safe.”

Abbie stumbled after him, stepping over the unconscious men who lay sprawled on her floor. Pot shards crunched under her feet. “All right, maybe we should call the police from somewhere else, but—”

Her words cut off as the lights came on. She squinted at the sudden brilliance, then gasped at the scene the light revealed.

Her neat, orderly apartment was in shambles. Leaves, potting soil and bright-red geranium petals were scattered everywhere. The men she had stepped over weren’t merely unconscious, they were bleeding. She felt her stomach roll as she saw the damage the tool belt and Flynn’s foot had done to their battered faces.