Cut Strings

Chapter Nine

I pried his fingers off my wrist, but they didn't even budge.

"Okay. I'll stop, alright? Now you tell me where Lil is. If you hurt her or something, I'll kill you." I snarled while grasping his shoulder for attention.

"I'm not so sure about that." He said, tugging me towards a dark thing in the hallway that was rectangular and looked like a door.

Oh, he's so sure, is he? I'll let him try my dirty handshake...

I moved closer to him, wiggling my wrist delicately as I did so.

"Hey, so... you still up for it?" I smiled my prettiest smile at him. At that moment, the door in front of us creaked open slowly, so he could see me but I still couldn't see him. Yet I knew who it was.

"Up? For... what?" He seemed to stiffen the nearer I went to him. My hand was enveloped by his rough one.

"This." I purred into his ear. My hand was exactly at the right position and was loose enough to grip his for a handshake.

Except that I didn't want to be ladylike now.

He also just realised that I was holding his hand and tightened his grip. Ha. Watch this.

I shook my hand free, but did it with a series of handshakes, the first the lightest and the last, pulling his arm muscles to the point of pain before I punched him in the stomach with my left hand.

I side-stepped him and smirked.

"Bet that feels like your shoulder was jerked out of its socket. Next time, try not to underestimate girls who are 5'3 and small."

I turned and ran to the safety of the room with light.

***

And was immediately bombarded by a sniffling, wet thing which was now petite by comparision.

"Where on EARTH were you?" Lil wailed loudly, "I was worried sick!"

Awwww. She missed me? Thank God I was alive.

"Yeah, well, I was in heaven and got attacked by a devil, which is now lying in the hallway-"

"Damn you, Lavender Famele! But luckily I didn't underestimate you too much..."

He trailed off when he caught Lil staring at him. I, however, didn't even move a finger, yet my jaw twitched.

I waited patiently for Lil to realise who it was. She did have a delayed response sometimes.

"Wayne! Oh, you're here! Derra, did yiu meet him? Wait, maybe not... you were out for quite a few hours."

This was not what I was expecting.

"Wait. Lil, you already knew he was gonna be here?" Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his features turn into an unreadable mask.

"Well of course! He's the host! Wait... crap. I'm sor-"

"Damn! Lil, I thought you were blackmailed by him to force you to bring me here or something!" I said furiously, "What the heck! I thought you knew that I hated him! Bloody... I'm going to kill him!"

"Kill me? If you really wanted to, you would've done it four years ago." The last sentence was punctuated with a sense of sombre finality, emphasised heavily with a dark and deadly tone that came from behind the door.

I spun around on the balls of my feet. "You! What do you want? You know very well that I loathe you. Loathe. The word that's worse than hate. What, you're taking revenge? On me? Or my family?"