SATe [✔]

[10] acatalepsy

"It's barely bruised," He mentions, referring to her shoulder I could only assume. He begins to smile as he loses himself in his own thoughts, shaking it off almost as suddenly as it had appeared, "Marie will be fine. She's tough as nails."

I thought about it for a moment. If that were the case, I didn't need to be here any longer. If she was safe, what more could I ask for? I debated telling him I was just going to leave but realised I had missed my chance to do so much earlier. He had reached into a drawer beneath him and walked back around the desk, hopping over the hatch that gave you access instead of opening it.

He slowly hands me a small booklet; an action that seemed to be fuelled by regret and unease. A brief flip-through of the booklet informed me that it included all the codes they used as a team. I can't help but feel confused; something he only raised his hands to.

"Marie wants your help with... all of this." He sighed, gritting his teeth together. I realised if it was up to him, he would probably respect my choice of limiting my involvement with the team. The name of which, SATe, was embroidered on the front of the booklet, a blood-red colour against an emerald green covering, "Don't ask me why, Marie tends to make decisions on her own, completely thoughtless to the repercussions that meet the others it affects. I imagine the loss of Banks is a large factor; she referred to him in any dangerous situation."

He thinks again for a moment, "But then again, he was our team 'muscle'."

I think to reject him, and Marie herself, but find myself interrupted before I can finish the word 'but'.

"Just do me a favour. Humour me." He says, a small and unwilling smile forming on his lips, "As soon as Marie says you can go, I'll let you leave freely. She's stuck-in-the-mud stubborn and I can't handle another three-month silent treatment from her."

I can't help but sneer, she did seem the type. I can't help but imagine her in an energetic conversation, which quickly ends as she realises he's in the room. I can't help but think she'd pull that off seamlessly.

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I didn't tend to be in libraries very often. It wasn't as though I didn't enjoy reading or the company of books and their avid readers, it was more an inability to give time to reading as a hobby. Despite this fact, I'd spent more time inside of them in the past few months than I ever had before.

Before that, the only true memory I had was Hannah and I popping into photocopy tax returns, and even then, I stood behind her, gripping her skirt and quietly murmuring that I wanted to leave. I remember that only because of the librarian; she had bright orange, clearly dyed hair, and was arrested for breaking and entering a couple of months later.

Hannah said I must have read her like a book while laughing, but I could never transform that genuine fear I felt of her and turn it into a joke.

Notwithstanding my lack of knowledge of libraries and their interior design, I had to say I doubted there were any quite as packed and organised as this one was. There were rows and rows of clean, silver bookshelves that were covered in neatly lined up books that were colour-coded and alphabeticalized based on the subject matter.