Silent Storm [ManxMan]

Chapter 9 ~ Surrounded by idiots

"The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?"

- Edgar Allan Poe

[River's POV]

Uhh... my head hurt, my body was shutting down and I could feel my heartbeat slowing down at an alarming rate. I lay on the floor of my living room thinking of the man that had left me like this. He had seemed clever enough but I had never expected him to be that clever.

He had put the poison, I'd recognized it as an extract from the flower 'Convallaria Majalis' or in English, 'Lily of the Valley', on the rim of the cup and that had been simply brilliant. I had been quite surprised to see him standing there in my kitchen but I hadn't really thought about it that much. Since it wasn't a rare thing for strange men to come and try to kill me, I must admit, I've been getting kind of used to it.

I see now that that had been very foolish of me.

I coughed and my body heaved as I threw up on the floor beside me. I knew that if I had been a normal person I'd probably been dead any minute now. Since I wasn't though, I knew that I had at least fifteen minutes left before my heart would give in.

Maybe you wonder how that can be, but you must understand that as an assassin you have to be prepared for these kind of scenarios. While I worked with the League of Assassins I had been forced to digest a small amount of the most famous poisons at a daily basis. This, just so my body could build up some kind of resistance towards them. It wasn't like I was immune, no I would still die if I got poisoned, but the thing was that it would take longer for me to die than for a regular person. The fact that I could buy myself a while longer could result in somebody noticing me or me getting my hand on some antidote. The chances were slim but it was still a better chance of survival than it had been otherwise.

I forced my hand to grab the carpet as I used it to pull myself up on my knees. Damn that sexy man, why did he have to make my evening even more awful than it already was?! Couldn't he have just left my tea alone?

I was more upset over the fact that I hadn't gotten a chance to try the tea he'd done for me, than him actually killing me. Was that wrong? Nah, I didn't think so.

That was the second time I was robbed of a perfectly good cup of tea and it seemed to me that I just wasn't allowed to drink tea anymore. I pouted but it turned into a violent cough and I threw up some more before I got enough of a grip to start crawling towards the phone on the TV-counter.

It took me at least five minutes to make it and when I finally reached it my body was shaking so badly I almost couldn't grab the phone, no less dial the number. Another two minutes passed as I tried to get the numbers right and when I finally did I was so exhausted I had to lie on the floor with the phone in my now anemic hand for a while.

"Don't tell me you miss us already." Gabriel's voice spoke from the other side of the line and I could feel the relief washing over me. I never thought I'd be this happy about hearing his grumpy voice.

"I don't..." I managed to whisper into the phone and I could hear the intake of a breath on the other end.

"What happened?" His voice had gone from irritated to concerned in a second and if I could, I would have rolled my eyes at him.

"I'm dying." I said as a cough shook my body making me wheeze in agony.

"River God dammit!" Was the only answer I got before the line went dead in my hand. I slumped against the carpet, completely drained of energy, and I thought about the man that had killed me. He had been half a head taller than me with probably a few more pounds on his well-defined body.