He didn’t care what happened anymore. Darish put the tip of the pen to the document. Just as he did, someone knocked on the iron door.
“Is that a customer? If they’re coming this late, it must be an emergency job,” grinned the bald man who had been watching the proceedings from behind the pasty man. The more pressing the emergency, the more they could charge.
“Possibly. Looks like we got our second catch of the day. Hey, open that up.”
“All right.” The large man grinned as he slid the heavy-looking door open.
“Excuse me!”
Once the door slid open along its rails, someone stuck their head into the warehouse. It was Winry. Her wide eyes, clear as a blue sky, met Darish’s just as he was in the middle of signing the contract.
“Darish! I finally found you!”
“Winry?”
When she looked into the shop, Winry realized what Darish had been about to do in an instant. Before the large man could stop her, Winry ran in and snatched the contract from Darish’s hands, then tore it to pieces, saying, “You can’t sign something like this!”
“What do you think you’re doing?!” The men laid their rage bare. They had almost gotten their hands on a mark. This strange girl suddenly getting in their way made them lose their cool. “Who the hell are you?! Keep your nose outta our business!”
“Your business? You can’t call this anything other than intimidation!” Winry cast aside the shredded contract, then shielded Darish behind her back and faced the men.
“How did you know I was here?” Darish asked Winry as he clutched her clothes. He hadn’t expected to ever see her again.
“One of the clients at the shop said that he saw you being solicited around here!” Winry said.
“And you came because of that?” Darish asked.
“It’s not like I could stand by and do nothing while someone tried to trick you into getting another leg that doesn’t fit!” Winry replied without letting her eyes leave the men. Her desire to help Darish had been stronger than her fear. Yet she couldn’t let her guard down around the men, who were exuding a sinister atmosphere.
“Why, you little—who do you think you are? Coming into our shop uninvited and accusing us of intimidation!”
“But that is what you’re doing! You were just about to have Darish sign a contract!” she replied to the men who glared at her, then tried to leave with Darish.
“Why, you—!”
She was so quick that the men were a moment too slow to act.
“C’mon, Darish, let’s head back!” Winry encouraged Darish, supporting him and keeping out of the way of his crutch while heading for the exit. She and Darish needed to get out of there while the men were still deciding whether to call it quits after realizing they had failed to deceive Darish.
However, the large man near the door yelled, “Hunh? This girl’s the one who meddled with me earlier!”
“You!” Winry exclaimed.
Winry remembered the man’s face as well. He was the one from the stall who had picked a fight with Lettie when the girl had been lost.
“You twerp, you’re gettin’ in the way of our business again?! Hey, she’s a mechanic!” the man from the stall, who had witnessed Winry fix automail with lightning speed, told his buddies.
“You mean this little girl?” The pasty man turned to Winry, seeming dubious. “Are you actually a mechanic? Where do you work?” Not only was she young to be working at a shop, he doubted that a girl like her was an engineer in the first place.
Winry said nothing, as she couldn’t respond without endangering her employer. She just ignored him and tried to leave through the door. It seemed the pasty man hadn’t expected a reply in the first place. He simply tsked, then quickly signaled at the large man.
“Oh!” Winry said, noticing what they were planning. Before she could dash forward, the large man closed the heavy-looking door.
“What good’s supposed to come from trapping us in here?!” Winry flipped around and glared at the pasty man and his bald companion.
The men were persistent, but once they realized they had made a mistake, they normally didn’t relentlessly pursue their marks. They didn’t want to draw the attention of the military police. However, this time was different.
“Normally we’d just let you go, but we’ll be in hot water if you go blabbing about how we kept the kid occupied at our place for a long time,” the pasty man said, his lips twisting into a grin as he shrugged.
“You know just as well as I do that you won’t be punished even if we did tell anyone. There weren’t enough witnesses!” Winry countered.
“That would’ve been the case before, but the military police have already got their eyes on us. Somebody who got in our way earlier put up a big fuss too, so we started a little fire at their shop. Then the military police started suspecting us. Said that they’d run us out of town next time we caused trouble, and if things really went sideways, well.” The pasty man put his hands out with his wrists together as though he were wearing handcuffs.
“A fire? That was you?!” Winry exclaimed. But no sooner had Winry realized she was in the presence of the culprits behind the arson than they had surrounded her.
Even if Winry and Darish promised that they wouldn’t tell the military police, the men, who were a step away from being in shackles, likely wouldn’t believe them. Since they’d even admitted to setting someone’s business on fire, they probably had no intention of letting Winry and Darish go home unharmed. As if to cement that suspicion, the bald man reached out and violently grabbed Darish’s shoulder, then dragged him to a chair by force.