Grabbing a dress from the rack at random, I walked over to a clerk near the back of the store. She gave me a stiff customer service smile.
“You want to try it on, hun?” she asked, waving her manicured hand toward the dressing rooms. “You’ll look stunning in that dress. Let me know if you need any help with sizes.”
She deposited me in the corner dressing room, hidden by a wall from the rest of the store. I closed the door behind me and shoved the latch over.
It was a tight space. I examined the surfaces for any potential advantage before jumping and bracing my feet in the two corners of the room, holding myself well above the floor.
I waited.
When I heard someone’s feet scuff the floor on the other side of the door, I held my breath.
“She was just here,” a man’s low voice growled, just outside. “She couldn’t have gotten out.”
“Is there another entrance?”
I heard rustling, and then the door handle beside mine jiggled. “They’re all locked. Look underneath.”
I waited until I heard the telltale sounds of a man crouching down before I struck. I whipped the door open and dove at him in a smooth motion. The man on the ground didn’t have time to do more than jerk up his head before I’d tied the dress around his neck and kicked him in the nose.
He groaned and fell forward, and I hooked the other end of the dress on the doorknob, allowing his full weight to fall into the stranglehold of the fabric. As he choked and sputtered, the second man sprang at me.
I caught him in the side of the head with a roundhouse kick and rammed my elbow into the back of his skull for good measure. He collapsed with a groan next to his companion, and I sprinted out of the dressing room alcove.
Now only one man stood between me and the door. “You might want to check on your buddies!” I called to him cheerfully as I hurried toward the mall courtyard.
The guy lunged at me, and I sidestepped just in time to knock his feet out from under him. Then I sprinted to the mall entrance.
If my pursuers were any good, they’d regroup in a matter of minutes. I’d be even more ready for them then. I couldn’t have staged an interrogation in the middle of the mall, but one of the grubby alleys in this end of town? No problem.
I loped a block and a half away and stationed myself behind a tree to wait for my chance.