Read Smarter (an Ell Donsaii story #2) for Free Online

a minute the heating element was red hot. She hopped up on the sink to hold one of the cable ties forming the strap between her ankle cuffs against the coil of red hot wire. To her relief the strap melted quickly, creating only a little smoke that the bathroom fan quickly carried away. Next she held the handle of the dryer between her knees and melted off her right and left wrist cuffs. Chang still hadn’t noticed what she was doing so she melted the cuffs off each of her ankles too so that she wouldn’t be marked by the ties after she escaped.
    Ell unplugged the drier and ran her fingers through her hair while she thought a moment, then she stepped across the hall to the closet. She lifted the 36 inch wooden hanger bar off its support and dumped the hangers into the corner.
    Chang, roused by the clatter of the hangers, jumped up and was coming her way when she stepped back from the closet, her right hand grasping the hanger rod but hiding it behind the open door. She let her adrenalin spike and felt the zone crash over her, the world slowing and her heart beat becoming a ponderous throb. Knowing that she was moving so fast that what felt like ordinary speech to her, would be too fast for Chang to understand, she slowly said, “Put, your, hands, up!”
    Chang stared at Ell’s wrist, realized her hand was free and started scrabbling his hand inside his coat for a gun. Ell, feeling like she had all the time in the world, stepped fully back from the closet and then toward him, the hanger bar already whistling from down low, in an arc up toward his hands. As the gun cleared his lapel, the hanger bar struck Chang’s hand, traveling upward so that it drove the muzzle up, ripping the weapon out of his hand and flinging it against the ceiling. As the gun fell from the ceiling, Ell stepped over to catch it, then back to Chang who was beginning to crouch and cradle his fractured hand. Speaking slowly so he would understand her she said, “Sorry, but I did remind you that I was dangerous.”
    She pulled his AI headband off his head and jerked the cable out of the belt pack. She examined his gun, a Smith and Wesson, found the safety, worked the slide to chamber a round and put the gun in her waistband. Then she stepped into the bathroom, tossed Chang’s AI headband into the toilet and grabbed the hair dryer. She jerked the cord loose from its handle, noting with satisfaction that it came out with bare wire exposed. Ell put the plug back in the wall and touched one of the wires to the spigot, saw a heavy spark and then unplugged it. She took the cord into the entryway hall where she hung one of the bare wire coat hangers over the door knob, twisted the bare wire from the hair dryer cord onto the coat hanger and plugged it in the hall outlet which she had noted was not GFI protected. Just as she stepped away she saw the knob jiggle then heard a loud thump as whoever had grasped the knob was shocked off his feet.
    Chang, still holding his injured right hand in his left stood back up, determined to do something to stop this madwoman. She moved unbelievably fast, he thought, she stepped into the bathroom where I heard that clatter, then that deep electric buzz which made the lights flicker, then she was back out in the hall doing something with a wire and a coat hanger. She purposefully strode his way and he reached out toward her but she grabbed the wooden hanger bar and swung it hard so that it slammed into his shin. As he fell she said, “Sorry, can’t have you following me.”
    Ell started toward the window, intending to use rock climbing techniques to climb down the “chimney” between her building and the next but stopped as someone kicked the door hard. Her “door knob shocker” wouldn’t keep them from kicking the door in. She turned back, pivoted the monitor screen on the dresser toward the door and then stepped over to stand against the wall between the room and the bathroom. Sure enough, she could see the door faintly