Accidents of a Florist [complete]

9: Coming to a Close like a Flower at Sundown

This is the last chapter! Please, vote and leave a comment. Thank you very much for reading 'Accidents of a Florist'.

Callia barely stays seated when Grant Broadshoulder enters the conference room. Where before, she'd seen a washed-out man ready to drop dead, she sees a man full of evil. She wants to give him violence, threaten him, but she keeps silent; she's evaluating her prey.

He drops into the cushioned seat before her, blank-faced.

Agathe moves into her tunnelled eyesight and Callia slowly unclenches her hands, tugging her nails out one by one of the armrests. She takes a deep breath as her colleague begins her role as an mediator.

Now, with his motives for the crime revealed and with a charge of attempted-murder levelled at him, Broadshoulder accepts to pay reparations easily. Despite it all, Callia isn't satisfied. How dare he nearly kill her mate and come away, still under the impression that his crime is justified?

She wants to bite into his flesh. Instead, she takes satisfaction in signing the agreement with the blood of the loosing party as is per tradition, and the use of syringes and dipped pens doesn't take all fun away from the display of power.

She ruminates over her desire for revenge and over her little victory until suddenly, all alone in the emptied conference room, she remembers she doesn't know where she stands with Jeffrey. All the fight blown out of her, she slings her handbag over her shoulder and leads a lonely walk out of the building.

The driver's seat almost reclined to a fully horizontal position, Callia stares up at the padded ceiling, waiting for her brother to pick up the phone. He doesn't. After sixteen rings, she hears an automated message and hangs up. What would she have told him anyways?

Hi, brother, I work in werewolf law and won a case on my mate's behalf, whom I don't know where I stand with - yes, the Jeffrey I said I had an arranged marriage with - and now, I'm having a bit of a crisis.

A knock on the window startles Callia out of her bitter musings. She rolls down the glass, her eyes cold upon her colleague. Agathe pays no mind to it: "I thought you'd be already gone."

Callia shakes her head. "Ever since I left the Silver Dust pack, I've been like a bullet headed straight for the target, spinning around yet never looking, never noticing what was around me. The past few days have been disorienting and the target-, well I don't know where or what it is anymore. It's like a moving animal stepped in the way, or a magnet just grabbed hold of me... I don't know; I just don't know where I'm going anymore."

"So that's why instead of celebrating, you look like you'd fit right in at a weeper's bar."

"How kind of you."

"Listen, Callia," Agathe says, "until yesterday, my mate had never acknowledged the bond. I'm not coddling you because this magnet or stray animal of yours is something that I've experienced too.
"When I left the orphanage, I had high hopes for the world. My application here was accepted, and I would have a respectable job which was safe. Barely 24 hours in, I met my mate." Her voice lowers, filled with the ice that Callia's gaze had contained moments ago. "Mona didn't even look at me. She greeted all of my coworkers and walked off to do Moons knows what."

Callia looks down at herself shamefully. "You're right. I always thought you had it easier since she was in sight, but now that Jeffrey is close, I realize I was wrong. It's not easier for the heart when they are close, because no matter how close they are, they are out of reach."

Seeing Callia rub at her chest, Agathe reaches through the window to halt her hand. "You misconstrue: I meant to tell you that no matter how out of reach they seem, they really are closer than they appear. Closer, more accessible.
"Besides," she adds with a small grin, "I did a bit of research for my best friend, and what do you know? He's single!"

At this Callia lights up, "Watch your toes!" she cries out as she kicks her seat into a more dignified position, sticks the keys into the ignition and turns on her car.

Agathe watches in amazement as the small car zooms out of the parking lot, no doubt headed for the hospital.

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I thought this would be the last chapter, but I tricked myself! Please vote and comment.