In White Robes

Chapter 5 - Dispute

"So what kind of jobs do you get?"

"Hey, hey, what's for lunch?"

"How long have you been here?"

"Who's the man in the black suit down the hall?"

He wouldn't shut up. Ever since Tabby had been added as the third prisoner here in our room, here in Avery and I's room, he just wouldn't stop talking. Every hour yielded another ten questions. Every minute he would stare at me with his mouth slightly agape.

I thought I wanted Avery badly before, but this was worse. I needed him now more than ever, just to keep me away from the fox and his red eyes and his endless talking. I never really said anything back to him, but after so long, I felt the urgent need to do so. To scold him.

When he asked one more time about the man in the black suit, a reoccurring question, I threw my hands up in frustration and glared at him. With my teeth barred and my fists suddenly clenched tight, I finally let loose this anger manifested from annoyance.

"Would you stop with all these questions?" I barked, and Tabby flinched at the sound of my voice. I didn't need to worry about the Concealed checking on the noise; the soundproof walls prevented them from hearing much of anything.

"Ever since you got here, you've been flapping your lips nonstop!" I let everything pour from my head. "Asking questions about this, about that, about stuff I don't care about. I haven't been answering you at all. Have you noticed that? Are you blind? Take a hint and be quiet!"

With my boiling anger exhausted at last, I slouched against the wall, curling up and placing a hand on its body. Feeling as if Avery was right there but I knew he wasn't. He was sitting on his bed, watching the two of us and my outburst.

"I don't like your tone," Tabby suddenly said. My head jolted up, my eyes locking onto him with renewed frustration. Out of absolutely nowhere there was a new expression on his face. He looked menacing, staring down at me from the other side of my part of the room, his red irises gleaming with ambition.

"You don't get to choose what you like or don't like," I said, standing up and approaching him. "I don't know why they put you here, but this is our room." I pointed to Avery without looking back to the glass. "Our room, do you understand?"

Tabby pressed up against me, issuing this gesture of domination. As if I were the prey, and he the predator. I wasn't having it. I copied his body language, pressing my weight into him and remaining eye-level with him.

I could see his black mark so clearly now.

"I'm your new roommate, didn't you hear them?" Tabby said, biting his lip. "I can do and say whatever I want. Don't test me, little wolf." At this point, so many emotions were flooding together in my chest. I felt like a balloon, filled with too much air and on the brink of exploding.

"Calm down," Avery said from his side. "Don't fight. I heard they punish fights even harder than before."

Neither of us answered him. Tabby and I remained standing against each other, glaring at one another, both of us ready to fight and prove dominance over the other.

"You don't scare me, fox," I said and pushed him a little so that he would hit the wall. For a second he stared at me, malice glowing in those red eyes, and then he pulled something out from beneath his robes. I took a short step backward. It was a knife.

A knife.

"Does this scare you?" he asked and came closer to me, backing me into the glass and holding up the blade. Its silver body shimmered in the white lights. I saw my reflection within it briefly, and then Avery began yelling at Tabby. But Tabby wouldn't listen.

"I can fix our little dispute real quick, 20," he said.