Children's Games: A Story of Modern Consequence

Chapter 17

~Katerina~

Katerina woke to hot air being blown on her face. She immediately scrunched up her eyes and tried rolling over in order to avoid the minty breath.

"It's noon. Get up, shortcake," Mary cooed.

She opened her eyes and found that they were back in the house, and in their shared sleeping room. Mary... Anna... was holding a tall glass full of a dark green liquid. The room was cool despite the harshness of the midday sun streaming through the window. She remembered fragments from last night, but everything was clouded, and she somehow started thinking of Joshua as if she had spent the whole night with him. She glimpsed Joshua... Petyr, snoring unattractively with one arm over his face as he slept in a tangle of sheets. She wanted to laugh at the comparison to the version of him in her dream that was sparkly and colourful.

"Drink this."

Katerina sat up gently and took a small sip of the thick liquid, almost gagging on the taste. It was sweet, yet bitter and earthy.

"It's not that vomiting shit, is it?" she coughed, holding her stomach and trying to remember how long it took her before she had to throw up last time.

Anna gasped "No! But I should've! It would have been more helpful last night, though. Throwing up would just help with the alcohol still in your stomach, not the stuff still in your veins. Though it has been ten hours since your last sip, so it should be all ok anyway."

"What is it then?" She brought the glass to her lips and squeezed her eyes shut before taking a large gulp, trying not to think about the taste.

"It's basically a strong sports drink, mixed with a bunch of green goodness. Plus, a little extra ingredient from my lab." Katerina still had her eyes closed, though she could tell by her tone that Anna was wiggling her eyebrows. "It's just to help you get started for the day. Well, for the afternoon, I guess. Wednesdays are kind of our chill days now. I know you must be thinking we have a lot of spare time on this really important mission, and it's true, but everything is for a reason. All of Fimiston has Wednesday off, and they work straight through Saturday and Sunday. Wednesdays are kind of the new weekend."

"This drink is disgusting," Katerina gasped, ignoring the last few drops sitting at the bottom of the glass.

"Well, it's not meant to be as delicious as the stuff we were drinking last night. You should start taking shots before you go to bed, by the way. Because last night, you were an absolute delight to sleep with."

Sleep with? Katerina's mind zeroed in on Anna's smirk. She suddenly felt the way she had felt last night drinking all the sweet vodka liquors. Anna was so sweet and so touchy...

"How drunk did I get? I only remember taking that last blue drink after I got back with Joshua," she said, peering over at Petyr, still sound asleep. "When you say... sleep-"

"Katerina," Anna breathed in her thick accent, placing a gentle hand under Katerina's chin, "I only meant that it was easy sleeping next to you. You didn't move around a whole lot, like you usually do."

Anna shook her head, smirking as she reached over Katerina and grabbed the empty glass from the nightstand, and backed away out the door, her eyes never leaving Katerina's. As soon as she was gone, she smacked her palms to her eyes and fell sideways onto the bed. Heat swarmed to her cheeks as embarrassment punched through her stomach of stupid thoughts of Anna in that way...

"What is wrong with me?" she mumbled incoherently into the mattress, covering her face.

Anna was a very physically affectionate talker. She liked putting a hand on her listeners arm, and there had been a couple of times that her fingers gently grazed her cheek as she made a quiet remark about how pretty she had looked while drunk.... was that a real memory? Or am I just making stuff up now? She had even woken up in the middle of the night two days before with Anna leaning against her back, eager for human touch. For a group as professional as a Special Ops Unit, they were all very close with each other.