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“Tirowls frole with renewed strength, shifting, trying to gain any sort of leverage and get out frothat word, the word that reether

Just as I realize th and fury, the door swings open I see hiht in a fairytale, and my heart nearly leaps from my chest

“Get your fucking hands off her”

Pike crosses the room in what looks like one step, and in an instant both his hands co doll, off of me and across the room He stumbles over the chairs and falls like a rotten tree onto a sht onto the crotch of his perfectly pressed gray suit pants

“You okay?” Pike’s panicked attention is on me as he pulls me up to face hi up and down

“I’asp, hoarse,happened”

He turns his head to the side, giving Derrick a look that would topple kingdoms

“Pike I o” More than anything I just want to be out of this rooht happen next

“Go? Oh hell, no This piece of shit is getting what’s co the cops”

Pike’s phone is in his hand in the next instant

Derrick is on his feet, panic washing over his face, but Pike just points at hi Stay put To my shock, Derrick stops dead in his tracks

Pike relates to the 911 operator the general scene he encountered, answers some questions, then he shoves his phone into his pocket

By now a crowd has gathered outside the open conference roo to look cool with his wet crotch He pulls out his own phone and frantically starts typing away on the screen After a moment his eyes come to rest on me

“She wanted it She was begging for it” Derrick says, pointing his phone at roup of nervous looking le around the door, but his words sound weak, desperate

“I didn’t want it, you ass Just like I didn’t want it when I was sixteen” I yell the last word All the years of holding back co to shutto say it didn’t happen Not now and not then So you better lawyer up, asshole, because this ti quiet!”