James
Michael is showing the strain, constantly pacing Richard’s office. I’m about to ask him to stop doing it, but pull myself up short as I realise I’m doing the same myself.
We’ve not heard from Charlotte now for two days.
Beth has shadows under her eyes. Richard has sent her upstairs, supposedly to sleep. But I’m not sure if she will.
And Richard himself…. He looks almost haunted. Perhaps someone who didn’t know him well wouldn’t spot it, as he puts up a show of going about his daily work, but every so often, I catch him staring into the distance.
Francis too, I see watching him constantly, if surreptitiously. Then too, I see her eyes following Michael as he stalks back and forth.
“You’ve not heard from her again?” Anxiety lies layered within Richard’s words.
Michael snarls. “You think we wouldn’t have told you if we had?”
Abruptly the air rattles with the clanging of alarms. Richard sits back in his seat. Michael ducks his head as though dodging the wall of sound. Outside, a siren blares.
“What the hell?” mutters Richard. “Francis,” he yells through the door. “Is there a fire drill going on they’ve not told me about?”
Through the internal window, I see her brows crease as she taps into her desk phone. “No, not today, Mr Haswell. I’m just calling Security now.…” She nods, the receiver pressed to her ear. “They’re reporting some kind of disturbance in the basement levels….”
Red-faced, his patience short, “Well, get them to shut off that racket!”
As the alarms die away, he turns back to me. “Um, what were we talking about? Oh, yes, how Charlotte is returning. So, she’s not told you any details at all? Just a couple of one-line messages to say she’s alright and still on her way?”
“All we know…” I say, “… is that she wanted a top-end smartphone and flashlights.…”
“She planned to travel in the dark?”
It seems reasonable, doesn’t it….
…. all those underground plans of the City she compiled….
“Er….” It’s Francis, her head popped around the door, eyes dancing, wiping tears of laughter away. “…. you’d better all get down to the parking level. You’re wanted there….”
Underground….
The three of us move as one, heading for the elevator.
*****
interminable. A part of me
How is she?
Is she hurt?
repeatedly laces and unlaces his
What’s wrong with him?
must be
parking lot and the smell of drains. One of the maintenance engineers is jimmying up a manhole
to go down here for years,” he comments as, with a heave and a puff, the
is broad as he extends a hand down. “Come on, Love. Y’know, there’s a
and heaves, hauling up an arm, followed by Charlotte on
encrusted in
Mud????
…. Perhaps it’s mud….
cling and crawl. Every part of her skin and clothing
herself. “Oh…. that was fuckin’ awful,” she pants at the plumber as, standing back at
her gaze swings and she sees me, Michael and
caked-on muck covering her face, but as her
the filth, a pair of emerald eyes
a bit. Er…. I know you’re going to bawl me out, but can I have a bath first? I had to come through the sewers part of the way, and there were places I had
came through the sewers to get back
…. to me….
have never seen anything so beautiful as the sight of my dripping filthy Jade-Eyes. Arms held out, I stride over and her face lights up, a white-toothed grin bright under the caked muck. But she backs off just a
is warm. “Elizabeth’s
don’t try to touch her, but, “Come on. Let’s get you into the shower and
as she looks to Michael.
fuck’s wrong with
We got her back….
you wanted, isn’t
vainly trying to catch the drips from her clothes. A small, but feculent pool gathers at her feet, and she looks apologetically at Richard, who simply sucks in a smile and taps on his phone. “Francis, get some
you in a while,” he says as he
straight to the bathroom, shedding her clothes in a stinking heap just outside the door. As
tying it tight, then dropping the
we talk quietly as we wait. Michael’s not happy, I