(Lena)
I heard Brad say my name before I saw him move.
Cole heard it too. He stepped in front of me before I had fully registered what was happening, not dramatically, not with any urgency in his movement, just a single step that placed him between me and the direction Brad's voice had come from. It was so precise and so quick that it took me a moment to understand what he had done.
Brad had come around the side of the room while Gerald was still gathering papers. He was moving toward me with the particular energy of a man who had been sitting still for forty minutes and had decided the moment the formal structure lifted that he had something to say.
Cole turned to face him.
"Brad." Cole's voice was level. Not cold, not aggressive, just absolutely final. "All communication goes throug
