“I’ve had a really bad morning,” Theo said. “So get out of here, right now, before I take it out on you.”
The big guy recovered his balance. “Out of the way, teacher.” He put a big paw on Theo’s shoulder, already shoving forward. “We’ve got business with that little bitch.”
“Get out of my office,” Theo said, fetching up against Grace’s desk. Masala slopped out of the TV tray, spattering his hands, the superheated sauce burning him. Theo felt it at a remove; his blood was up. He kept his eyes straight ahead, so as not to draw attention to Auggie, hidden behind the door now.
“Where is that little pussy?” the man asked. “Auggie, where the fuck is Robert?”
“How many lines does a sonnet have?” Theo asked, pushing up from the desk.
“What the fuck are you—”
Theo headbutted him. The key to a good headbutt was to use the solid bone of the forehead as the point of impact. Theo had been in a lot of bar fights. Theo had an asshole younger brother who had dragged him into a few more serious scrapes. And Theo had lived and worked with guys who carried knives and didn’t think twice about using them. For Theo, the only good fight was the one that ended absolutely as quickly as possible. A headbutt was a really good way of doing that.
The big guy was still turning, drawn by the strangeness of the question, when Theo connected. Theo felt the bridge of the man’s nose crumple. The man screamed and went down; he had his hands over his nose, and he was kicking, his legs catching in Grace’s chair as he pinwheeled on the ground.
“You’re dead,” the blond woman screamed. Her hand came out from behind her back, and she charged into the office with a gun.
“Now,” Theo shouted.
Auggie barreled into the door, and it caught the woman completely by surprise. She crashed up against the doorframe, pinned between the jamb and the door. Theo swung the cane as hard as he could. It connected with her hand, and the woman shrieked. She dropped the gun. Auggie was still bearing down on the door, which was real wood, heavy and solid, and Theo swung the cane again and caught the woman across the face. She screamed again. Somehow, she slipped free of the door and back into the hallway. Auggie stumbled over the big guy and grabbed the gun. The dark-haired kid was panting, his hands shaking as he dragged the door open and pointed the weapon at the woman.
“Ok,” Theo said, his voice sounding distant over the rush of blood in his ears, and he touched Auggie’s shoulder. The kid flinched. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
It wasn’t just Auggie’s hands that were trembling; the kid was shaking all over.
“Auggie,” Theo said quietly. “Get your finger off the trigger, please.”
The whoosh of Theo’s heartbeat made it hard to hear; he felt like they were in a vacuum, just the two of them, and nothing he was saying was reaching Auggie. Theo let his fingers slide down Auggie’s arm, bump over his wrist, and wrap around his hand. Then he freed the gun from Auggie’s grip.
“That’s good, Auggie. You did really good.”
The woman had stopped screaming, and now she crouched on the floor. One hand was over her face, covering where Theo had struck her with the cane. The other hand hung at her side; several fingers were obviously broken. On the floor of the office, the big guy had stopped pinwheeling, but he still had both hands over his broken nose, and blood streamed between his fingers.
“I’m calling security,” Theo told the woman.
She stared at him for a moment. Then she stood. “Jerome,” she said. “Jerome, get your fucking ass off the fucking floor. Right now, Jerome.”
Somehow, the big man got to his knees. He crawled to the doorway, past Theo and Auggie, and the woman helped him to his feet.
“You stupid fucks don’t have any idea—” she shouted.
Theo slammed the door and locked it. Then he grabbed the phone on Grace’s desk and dialed campus security. The dispatcher promised to send someone over right away and told Theo to stay in the office. When the dispatcher asked if Theo wanted to stay on the line, he said no and hung up. Then he finally got his first good look at Auggie.
Something bad had happened to the kid. A bruise was darkening on his jawline, and his lip was split again—Theo felt a flash of guilt for that—but mostly it was the terror in his face. The kind of scared look Luke had worn too many times for Theo to count: when he’d dealt bad weed in high school and had Billy Schoening and his gang hunting him down; when he’d gotten Tammy Kluth pregnant, and the Kluth boys were hunting him down; when he’d cut baggies of crystal meth with Pop Rocks and had the Ozark Volunteers hunting him down.
“Sit down,” Theo said, touching Auggie’s arm, intending to steer him toward a seat. “You look like you’re—”
And then, before Theo knew what was happening, Auggie was stepping forward, obviously having mistaken the movement as the beginning of a hug. He wrapped his arms around Theo and buried his face in Theo’s shoulder as he shook.
“Ok,” Theo said. He stood there with no idea what to do. Luke had never wanted a hug. Luke had never wanted anything but for Theo to fix it. After a moment, Theo felt stupid standing with his arms out to the side, so he patted Auggie’s back. “Hey, it’s ok. You did good. You handled yourself really
