Sheep [ONGOING]

Chapter 18: January 14 (Part II)

Lily returned to the hall, brandishing her phone in one outstretched hand.

Scarlet's voice came readily at the closing of the bedroom door: "How precious."

"Yes," Lily purred, returning to her entourage with a puffed chest, "she's a doll." She lifted the phone screen to her face, pinching the buttons along its side, and gave a huff, deflating. "It's a relief she has Ace... but I would have liked a working phone."

The hushed hum of conversation between two men, sifting through mounds of paperwork beside the kitchen sink, droned on with her.

"How is her group?" Scarlet tried, posted over the edge of the couch's armrest.

"Little lamb has a sleeping partner in one corner," Lily answered, lips curling. "And there's no conversation to be had—not right now."

Shimmying back, Scarlet patted the vacant seat cushion at her side. It took Lily's widening eyes and a second of pause for her to perk up, stiffening as she moved to join her.

"Some insight on their conversation might have been entertainment enough," Scarlet sulked, tapping together her acrylics as Lily crossed her for the couch, falling with a thump into the center seat. "Can't have the world, I suppose."

"There wasn't any talking," Lily assured her, cocking her head.

Their company—a mix of security, civil servants, criminal investigators, whoever else—overwhelmed the room, some reduced to cramped folds against the wall between their blankets and sleeping bags. The hum of voices remained strictly hushed, often leaving only the scrawling of two, a man and a woman, to linger in the air, two indiscernible strangers slaving over Ace's coffee table.

Lily veered forward into Scarlet's view, approaching at a murmur. "What're you thinking?"

The moment came and went, Scarlet's eyes bouncing across the room for a signal of her intentions. Following Lily's lead, she dropped to a whisper. "About what, pray tell?"

Lily inched closer on her hand, near to resting her chin against Scarlet's shoulder. "Is it safe, you think?" Her feet shifted against the carpet, heels snagging the fiber. "All these people... Charlie's got me worked up."

"My assumption," Scarlet breathed in reply, "was security enough. I'd expect they will moderate themselves lest they disappoint some higher authority."

Humming, Lily retreated, lidded eyes inspecting Scarlet with a nod. "I see."

"What?"

"Nothing," she grinned, turning away only to return. "Maybe I'm jealous of you."

"I'm nothing to aspire to," Scarlet assured her.

Lily elbowed her; Scarlet leaned away on impulse, half-startled. "Be as modest as you'd like," Lily nagged, "but you're embarrassing us adults."

"Or perhaps you humble yourself in regards to me."

"You humble yourself."

"By any means," Scarlet insisted, pressing words through tight lips, "you'll withdraw that assumption in the event your concerns are validated."

Lily sunk, clinging still to her optimism. "No, there's more to it than whatever you're thinkin' now," she nodded, resolute.

"You flatter me."

"I do it best."

Scanning the landscape, Scarlet's eyes met one of their security, quickly leaving. The pair at their feet never divorced from their work. A group of three sat in the far corner near the balcony, two tossing a hush of ideas while a third listened in. A cluster of strangers among the fray remained at rest, reduced to the resort of their own accommodations and meeting them occasionally with a snore or unintended murmur.