"You'd actually hit me?"
"You bet I would."
I grabbed his collar with one hand and swung at his face with the other.
The next second my wrist was locked, and I was flipped flat onto the floor.
I looked up. It was the people Elise had brought.
My arm cracked against the ground, the joint snapping loud enough to hear, and the pain whited out my vision.
Before I could even recover, Elise's furious voice came down on me.
"Toby, have you lost your mind? This is a company, not some street market!"
I gritted my teeth and glared at her. "He smashed my laptop!"
Elise went quiet.
Rudolph said carefully, "I was just worried he'd walk off with company files. How was I supposed to know I'd drop it by accident, and then he goes off like this."
At once Elise's heart went out to him.
"It's fine. I'll handle it."
When her eyes landed on the laptop on the floor, her right hand tightened too, without her noticing.
"He went too far, sure, but Rudolph was doing it for the company. If you'd just turned in the template directly, the laptop wouldn't have gotten broken."
And just like that, I understood.
Today's whole scene had her quiet blessing. The point was to copy off my personal files.
I understood something else too. They were never going to let me walk out of here with that laptop intact.
Fine. Even if I destroyed everything I'd poured myself into, there was no way I'd let them have it for free.
I gave a cold laugh and dragged myself up off the floor.
Elise instantly threw out an arm to shield Rudolph, her eyes all wariness.
I ignored her. I just picked up the laptop and slammed it into the floor.
It didn't break, so I picked it up and slammed it again.
Until the shards cut my hand open and it bled.
Until not even God himself could ever fix it again.
"Satisfied?" I asked Elise.
Something flickered in her eyes at last. A trace of panic.
After all, this was the laptop she'd bought me back then, with the first real money she ever earned.
I'd always treasured it.
That time in the downpour, I'd been soaked through head to toe, but the laptop stayed perfectly dry under the umbrella.
And now I'd smashed it to pieces with my own hands.
"Toby, I…"
I turned, picked up the water cup, and tossed it down at her feet.
"Forgot you bought this one too. Here, it's yours."
I held her gaze for a long moment, then said, "Goodbye, Ms. Fox."
With that, under the stares of her and the rest of them, I turned and walked out.
