The Blonde Bowstring: Steelgray's Story

4

The first time Nicole realized she might have been going soft was when she was baking in her kitchen.

No, not because her hands were playfully covered in flour or because there were specks of it on her nose and cheeks. It was the fact that she hadn't heard the front door open and was surprisingly alarmed by the sudden voice.

"Yoo-hoo," she heard her best friend call from the front room.

"Tim?" Nicole called out shakily, her eyes wide upon seeing the added presence. She'd only been here two days.

She was met with what Nicole took as an unsettling silence. However, the brunette made sure to keep a sensitive ear out, so she knew Timothy was making his way over.

It took a moment for the 26-year-old to snap out of it, but she had to when Timothy entered the room. "What'd I tell you about sneaking up?" she asked, forcefully coating her voice with a playful tone.

Timothy stood in the double doorway of the mansion's kitchen. "Sorry. Key," he explained rather tersely.

Nicole almost choked on her forced laughter. "You don't have to apologize." Then she spotted the white plastic shopping bag he was holding. "What's in there?" she asked, her voice finally finding its warmth again.

Despite the friendly tone, she went over to the sink with her mixing bowl. It wasn't to wash it out but to be closer to the knife bar. Nicole How was she already going soft?

Though her back was turned to him, she could hear Timothy rummaging through his bag. Nicole turned her head over her shoulder and watched him with narrow eyes, her hand wrapped around a knife.

"Hair dye!" he announced. "Yay!" Timothy exclaimed, holding the box of dye in the air for Nicole to see.

She subsequently sucked in a short breath. "Oh," she vocalized. Nicole released the knife, letting it clatter slightly on the counter. She turned on the faucet and let the water fill the bowl, leaving it there to rinse. "Why?" she asked curiously.

"Well, the world isn't used to a naturally-brunette Nicole Steelgray."

Nicole exaggerated gratefulness, her hand flying to her chest and her full lips pouting. "Tim, you know me so well."

Nicole's fake smile was effortless even as she lied to her best friend. If Timothy truly knew her at all, he'd know a dye job was the least of her worries.

<4>

The sun was shining, but it didn't seem to be working. It didn't lift Nicole's mood like it did back in Limitless. It had the opposite effect, beating down on her with its fiery rays.

Jake Jameson seemed to be oblivious to this fact. "I'm sure you will enjoy your time here," he said now that they made it back to his base. He stuck his gun into his pants front, drawing Nicole's eyes. She couldn't help but be reminded of how boys would ogle at her in her cheerleading uniform... how other things would happen. At times like that, back then, she would question if they knew they were only hurting themselves.

The blonde chose to stay silent and kept her head down. They didn't linger on the ground for long. Soon she was looking up at the inhabitants around her. There were mostly men dressed like foreign soldiers. Then there were women, broken, miserable, and battered. At this point she ripped her eyes away, because those women were sure to be self-conscious in a place like this, and her staring wasn't helping.

"Oh, don't mind them. Those men won't harm you." Jameson said as if she wasn't standing in a glorified military base. "You'll learn soon enough. I think you'll find that some of these men might remind you of your father."