Wolves With Violent Brass

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Life up until now had never prepared Daniel for moments like these. Trapped in a claustrophobic nightmare, accosted by an old woman, lost in the bad 'hood' of town and currently caught up in the middle of a potential break in, Daniel never felt more out of his element than tonight. His luck had obviously run out. "Ceri...Ceridwen!" He yelled over the loud shrill of the alarm, but to no avail, as nobody answered him back. His thoughts instantly went to the thought of several armed 'gang-youths', as the news called them, storming the store and ending the old woman's life. He was sad to say the thought did not create a surge of bravery to corrupt his common sense, but instead Daniel jumped behind the glass counter and crouched, fearing his life would be next after the old woman.

"Perpon, be quiet!" The high pitched scream stopped and Daniel could finally uncover his ears; something he had unconsciously been doing since the alarm's unfortunate broadcast. Ceridwen came hobbling back into view, but she didn't spare a glance in Daniel's direction. She was moving at quite a frantic pace and Daniel could hear the sounds of something following in the midst of her wake.

"Boy! I need help, quit hiding."

The feeling of Fear and the adjoining actions that come with it are never anyone's cup of tea, but sometimes we are forced into positions that seek us to overcome this reaction. The current situation was one of those occurrences. Daniel was being paralyzed by fear behind the counter and he was being asked to trounce it. His life, Ceridwen's life and the integrity of his inner moral compass were being challenged, but he could not bring himself to act. Her shouts of help were becoming more frenzied, but his limbs would not move.

"Help me! God damn it!" The lumbering footsteps of whatever was in the store preceded.

Ceridwen rushed over to Daniel behind the counter. His eyes were staring straight ahead and glazed over in a
panicked state. She shouted at him again, but he still didn't move. It was as if he was trapped in a bubble. He could see her and hear her, but it just didn't 'compute'.

Frustration leeched Ceridwen's face of any previous soft qualities in her features. Her cheeks were puffed out
in an angry red. The blue eyes that had haunted Daniel from the get-go blazed brightly and opened wide in the crazed steer of a person pushed to the brink. It was perhaps these signs that would have alerted Daniel to what was coming next, as her hand reared back and landed a crisp shock of pain to Daniels face. She had slapped him.

The pain was instant and felt hot against his skin. Again the burning sensation he had felt before when he had
taken her hand spread across him. He grasped at his cheek, but the pain only got more intense. "What the hell?!"

Ceridwen looked pleased. "Good. You need to help me."

She ran back to the table she had been trying to move. Daniel reluctantly followed. The slap had been a shock, but it had given him the power to break the turn that he had taken; the sound of her palm hitting his face still echoed in his head. "We need to get this table down, now!"

Daniel seized the edge of the fore mentioned object and tugged it down in one adrenalin fuelled tug. The table crashed to the floor sending a white teapot balanced on top into many pieces. Now, don't be mistaken into thinking Daniel Warner was remotely strong or could boast himself as one of the many gym buffs populating social media sites in an attempt for attention. Daniel was at best, able to open the jar of gherkins that were a weekly grocery purchase, but not anything greater. He kept slim by walking most places and that was his exercise, so to assume he was strong would be widely inaccurate. He was instead, extremely pissed off and getting angrier. All he wanted to do was make a good impression, now he was going to end up on local news with no head.

"No matter," she said, "move it over here." Ceridwen motioned to the middle of the open space in which the glass counter sat and the strange iron pot Daniel had seen when he first came in. Daniel dragged it over.