In irritation, the large man punched the shelf next to him with the hand that held the lighter. The shelf wobbled wildly from the impact. Objects fell off, dropping onto Winry and Darish. A jar about as big as a fist landed right where Darish’s leg met his prosthesis.
“Ugh!”
As though the man had heard the groan, he stuck his head through the shelf and peered into the other side where Winry and Darish were.
“Found ya!” he shouted when he noticed Darish. He reached through the gap in the shelf to grab him.
“Darish! Hyah!”
Winry gave the shelf that the man had stuck his head through a good push.
“Ahh!”
The shelf slowly fell. The man was saved from being crushed by the shelf landing on its neighbor, but he couldn’t protect himself from the objects tumbling down on him like an avalanche.
“Damn it! Hey, the two twerps are over here! Somebody get over here!”
While the man was struggling and flailing his arms around, Winry quickly grabbed the fallen lighter, pulled Darish up from the ground, and supported him with her shoulder.
“Let’s go! We’re almost at the back of the warehouse!” she said.
“I said it’s fine already!”
“Just come with me!” Winry insisted.
She forced Darish up and practically dragged him away. Before long, the other men found their fallen comrade and started to clamor.
“Where’d they go?!”
“Hey, you, look over there!”
Winry knew that if she and Darish became surrounded, they would be powerless to do anything. While the large man’s comrades frantically helped him, Winry hurried along as quietly as possible.
Eventually, she made out a black wall directly ahead of them. Winry let go of Darish’s arm temporarily and slid her hand against the rough wall as she tried to find the back exit.
“I’m pretty sure it was around here,” she said.
Her fingers caught on something that felt like a cold plank. Winry pulled out the lighter and blocked its light with her hands and body. For a few seconds, orange light illuminated a door boarded shut by several planks, then she snuffed out the light again.
“This is it!”
Winry stuck her hands between the gaps in the planks and grabbed the handle. She pushed and pulled on it several times to make the boards shift, which made the door budge slightly. A single line of light from the streetlamps streamed through the opening and into the warehouse. When she yanked at the handle even harder, the band of light grew larger and her surroundings started to grow brighter.
“Darish, help me! It’s almost open. I’m sure we’ll be able to get out.”
But, when Winry turned around, she found the pasty man standing behind Darish. Before she could say anything, he shoved Darish. The impact made the boy’s prosthesis fall off, clattering as it tumbled across the ground.
“Whoa!” Darish cried out.
“Darish!” Winry said, running over to Darish’s aid.
“Finally found you!” said the man, grabbing her arm and pushing her face-first against the wall. “How about we cut a deal, huh? Let’s say that the kid came to our shop of his own accord, what do you say? You do that and we’ve got an excuse for the military police. It’ll sure help us out.” Then he turned to Darish. “In exchange, we’ll introduce you to a great piece of automail, kid.”
The man grinned as he pulled a new contract out of his pocket and threw it down in front of Darish, who was on the ground.
“Darish, you can’t!”
Winry turned her head to glare at the man who had pinned her. “Don’t you feel any shame? Tricking people and roughing them up like this!”
“Not in the slightest.” The man spoke as though it was everyone else’s fault for allowing themselves to be duped. Winry’s face was pressed against the wall, but her fist trembled in silent rage.
While that was happening, Darish absently gazed between the sneering man and the seething Winry, as though none of this were happening to him. His leg had tumbled far away and was out of reach. When he strained his neck to look at his right leg sans its artificial limb, all he saw were the blackish-blue bruises on it. All he could feel were the long-pent-up emotions that had tortured and haunted him.
Darish picked up the contract, then collected his crutch and managed to support himself on one foot.
The man grinned. “That’s right, no need to resist when it won’t do you any good.”
“Darish!”
Winry struggled against the man holding her arm. Meanwhile Darish stumbled forward one step at a time toward the two of them.
Winry’s earlier words had stung—terribly, in fact. But Darish had noticed the tears glistening in Winry’s eyes. Those had been tears for him. And, at that moment, her eyes told him she was genuinely angry that he was about to be taken advantage of. He couldn’t accuse her of sticking her nose in where it didn’t belong. What Winry had said, what she had done, had all been the result of sincere concern for him.
Darish glared at the man. Then, he hurled his entire body forward.
“Let go of Winry!”
“Wha—”
The man, who had been convinced he had Darish in the palm of his hand, was caught off guard and stumbled. He fell to the ground.
“Y-you little twerp!”
“I get to decide who gets to be my mechanic! Like I’d let people like you be in charge of something as important as my leg!” he bravely declared and crumpled up the contract in his hands before throwing it at the man. Then he grabbed Winry’s upper arm from where she and the man had both fallen to their knees.
“Winry, let’s hurry up and get out of this place!” he said. Regardless of the fact that he was precariously balanced on only his crutch, Darish jerked Winry’s arm. He was a lot stronger than she would have expected.