Ink Me Insane (Book One)

Fourteen

"So yeah, that's basically what happened." Rene ended her playback with a slight shrug.

Lora had remained silent throughout Rene's ramblings. Her face was stoic and gave nothing away. What the crap was this woman thinking? Did she believe her?  Gez...all this stress was going to give her a heart attack or maybe an aneurysm. Rene had stuck to the hard facts, well most of them anyway. The fact that she had pocketed the knife and that there was one may have slipped her mind. Either way she kept out opinions to make her seem subjective, which was hard as heck because come on the psycho tried to kill her. Lora took a long chug of her coffee and slammed the cup down onto the counter. Now Rene was pretty sure she was going to die. She could see a small crack at the base of the cup spider webbing upwards from the force of the impact. Happy people that believed the story being told to them did not break their cups. Lora's eyes bore into Rene, who returned the hard stare with one of her own. Rene couldn't stop the twitching of her body, all of her muscles seemed wired. She blinked first, again. Crap, Lora was two for two. Apparently Rene really needed to practice this whole stare-down thing, she never realized it was such a big part of intimidation she usually won by being sarcastic and appearing slightly bored. Surprisingly, Lora's gaze softened with the end of their standoff.

"So let's say for the sack of argument I believe of all this," Lora waved her hand in the air as though she could pull the truth right out of it or pull apart the threads of a lie. "That Kristy attacked you and you were only trying to defend yourself from her.  How did you get your injuries?"

Rene took a deep breath forcing calm into her core. So logical, why couldn't Rene have gotten an idiot as her interrogator. Then again, anyone else probably would have jumped on the 'Kristy is always right and perfect band wagon'. She racked her brain for any logical explanation of the gashes. They were far too deep and wide for them to have been just Kristy's nails, even if they were practically claws based on how they sounded against the walls of the pit. Would keys leave a mark like this? Nah, they'd be far more jagged in their cuts. She had nothing. Of course, her overly-imaginative mad mind couldn't actually come up with something when she needed it to.

Just show her already, fledgling.

Rene groaned internally, of course because of the unlucky streak she was riding, things got more complicated than they ever needed to be.

My brother is right young one, this mortal is trustworthy.

Oh yeah? And what makes you say that? Rene retorted angrily at the disembodied voices.

Nothing...jerks. Well fine, she'd do it. If one couldn't trust the their own crazy hallucinations, and their untimely unwarranted advice, who could they trust? Rene carefully pulled one arm into her sleeve under Lora's watchful eye. This was far more awkward than trying to change shirts without taking one off, a fairly common occurrence at the asylum. People around here were really not big on the whole privacy for the residents after all. She contoured her arm and winced slightly at the bruises. She finally wrapped her palm around the handle of the knife. Sliding it slowly out of her makeshift bra strap sheaf, she drew it out with her arm putting the hoodie back on completely. Lora's eyebrows raised and her hard eyes seemed to reflect the metal of the knife. Correction now she was going to die. Shakily Rene put it down on the counter close enough that she could grab it if needed. Truth time. Was this woman going to be an ally or would the game end here? One heartbeat, two...

Rene's eyes darted frantically between Lora and the knife waiting for a reaction. Rene would get to the knife faster. She knew she would. The question was, what would after that? No doubt Lora's taser was somewhere around here and possibly other weapons. They were in a kitchen for frick's sake. Who knew how many sharp things were just a drawer opening away, strike that Lora knew which was the worst part. She had all the advantages here except for the one trump card that Rene had literally just laid on the table based upon her personal haunters' judge of character. Idiot. She felt sweat trickle down the side of her face, so much for the shower.