“Yes. What do you want?”
“I’ve news from Ren. He is . . . oh Grett, you must let me show you.”
There was the sound of dropping metal bars. The doors opened cautiously a trifle.
Sonya put her hand casually on the door. “It’s only Sonya, Grett. See here what I have.”
She tugged at the door. The guard was revealed, standing with the leveled metal pipe in his hand. Sonya touched the weapon. “Turn that away, Grett. It . . . frightens me!”
There was a low cry, a scuffle. Sonya had snatched the pipe. She leaped backward, swung it level.
“Don’t move, Grett! Don’t make a sound! If you do I . . . I’ll kill you!”
“Sonya!”
“I’m desperate! Can’t you see it? Get back in there!” She called softly, “Alice! Dolores! Here! Come inside, quickly.”
She had backed the frightened, surprised young man into the corridor, with leveled weapon and crisp menacing words. In the glow of the passageway’s single light, she held the weapon while Alice and Dolores bound the man’s legs and arms with the strips of fabric. Sonya gagged him, and they rolled him along the floor to the wall and left him.