"Berry Cobbler." She answered, placing down her cards in a huff as she counted higher then twenty-one. Lem let out a cheer at his winnings, pushing the stack of money on his end of the table.
Nora rolled her eye's before adding a final dollar bill to the pile, calling this her last bet as she did not want to lose all her money to a game of blackjack in one night.
"And you?" She asked him. Lem thought it over, the question really being that of his own when he asked 'what your favourite flavour of 'Shine is.' having not been one to drink too much of the stuff he had no proper answer, or maybe, he had one.
"Berry Mint."
"The Berry one's are usually the nicest." She answered back, eyeing the increasing pile of money infront of her as she added another card to her pile from the deck.
She held her breath as she eyed the number, letting it out as it had not yet hit twenty-one which didn't go unnoticed by Lem. He raised a brow and deciding to play with her a bit, added a little more money from his end just to be cocky.
Marcel hummed in the background, a gentle tune that reminded Nora of an old lullaby she used to hear from her mother when she was a young babe.
Marcel grew to interested in his humming that he paid no attention to where he was walking and ended up knocking a bottle of rum off of his work table, the smashing of the glass ringing in her ears.
She stood upright, facing him as he hurried to clean the mess. But her sudden movement didn't go unnoticed by the Frenchman.
"I am sorry, Nora." He apologised, waving his hand in the air at her. "I was no paying attention."
She bit onto her tongue and nodded slowly, closing her eyes and breathing deeply as she slowly sat back down at the table. Lem kept his eyes on her, reachinc forward to take her hand.
He knew not to do it so forwardly, instead using his fingertips to touch her own and if she would recoil her hand then he would leave it, but she didn't and so slowly he took hold.
"I should apologise, I ain't sure what happened." Her voice was quiet and she looked down towards the ground, as if being scolded for bad behaviour and Marcel could only manage to give her a sympathetic look as he had no idea of how to react in the situation.
"Don't apologise." Lem whispered towards her and slowly she nodded.
"I'm going to go for a walk.. get some fresh air." She announced soon and gently she pulled her hand away from Lem's grasp, rising out of her chair and up the stairs from the basement.
Marcel waited for the door to close behind her before he turned on his heel to address Lem.
"Please go make sure that Miss Morgan is okay, I worry about her. She's only acting more stranger."
Lem nodded. "She's scared, I seen it when I was in prison, but I ain't never seen it so bad."
Marcel let out a low whistle before patting his shoulder, point up the stairs. "Go check on her, mon ami. See if she is okay."
~
Nora sat against the rock, her knees brought to her chest and her hands covering her face as she gently weeped, her sleeves growing soaked the longer she sat there.
Lem heard the gentle sobs and hesitantly approached, careful so not to alarm her.
"Nor." He called gently and heard her stifle her sobbing. He looked over the trees, noticing the rock and quietly he walked over towards it as it seemed to be the only place where Nora could hide without being spotted first thing.
