Daisy looked at her watch twice, trying to hide the fact that worry was filling like water on a sinking boat. Her wrist felt heavy. Bound to the soft ticking of the gold watch. She quickly sat on her hand, hoping her twitching movements and current dedication to time keeping would go unnoticed. Slowly she let out a breath.
“Can we go yet?” Her chest felt heavy, voice dry from silence.
The only response was a cough and a shoulder shrug. Daisy raised her eyebrows and put more weight on her tremble hand currently captured under her thigh.
“I don’t know…” Jem’s tone was floating in the murky waters of annoyance. He pushed back his hair that started to collect in front of his eyes. And without missing a beat or even giving the satisfaction of a glance, he cracked a side smile, “I don’t know, can you?”
“You know if you actually used that smart mouth for something other than wise remarks maybe we wouldn’t be in the mess.” Daisy sneered without a second thought.
The cold stone against Daisy’s back was starting cause a deep pain in her spine. They were both stuck in a room no bigger than a sizeable closest, if you even dared to call it that. Cement walls damping the air with humidity. Drained echoes from the outside traffic were the only clues to the outside world and the only sound noted for the last hour.
“Why don’t you just keep your mouth shut for once?”
“What’s the fun in that?” Jem stretched out his legs as far as they would go, almost touching the opposite wall. He crossed his arms and closed his eyes. “Relax, they’ll be here soon.”
“Not soon enough.” Daisy snorted, turning her body away from Jem.
She stood up, trying to see if there were any cracks she could peak through, maybe a vulnerable patch of cement that would give her the slightest relief from the insufferable attitude that was reeking from Jem. Not that was a change from his usual reek.
“Would you sit down already?” Jem still had his eyes closed but somehow knew she was pacing through the closest-like cement box they were currently occupying.
Daisy stopped in her tracks and held in a sigh. They were already seven days in a three-week mission and already she knew this partnership was not working out well. If it wasn’t Jem’s attitude, it was his arrogance or unique talent of finding the right buttons to push to make her snap on command. The only way this mission was going to work was if one of them miraculously became unconscious, and she sincerely hoped it wasn’t her.
“You have got to be—” Daisy was interrupted by a sudden a crashing noise coming from the hallway followed by the orchestra of shattered glass and the muffled thump of bodies collapsing on a carpeted ground. But before Daisy could even register the scene, Jem was already on his feet with a blade palmed in his right hand. An almost insane glint reflected in his eyes. A look Daisy knew all too well. A look, she prayed, would never be directed at her. “You got your wish,” Jem was barely audible halfway out the wooden door that had been enclosing them for the last hour. Daisy was almost too stunned and at the verge of excitement that she forgot what they actually came here for.
Tori Skies 