"Are you ready?" James whispered, bouncing his knee incessantly.
Charlotte was half-tempted to catch his leg and hold it still. His shoe squeaked on the linoleum floor of the crowded waiting room with each movement and if he didn't stop soon she wasn't sure what she would do to him, but she knew it would involve pain. She tried to channel her own anxiety into playing the game, a game she had become so desperately bored with, but his nervous bouncing was driving her to distraction.
She frowned glancing at James' bouncing leg. It was unlike him to be so outwardly nervous. And it was about the seventh time he had asked her those three words since they had dragged themselves from bed and had been transported by bus to the meeting area, a large four storey building on the outskirts of the city.
Exhaling, Charlotte turned towards him and smiled, though she found the smile painful, pulling at muscles that would much rather have kept in a frown. "Of course," she breathed, with a feigned air of happy indifference.
He stared at her, his clouded green eyes searching hers. She could almost hear the unspoken questions flitting through his head.
She had decided against telling him about her most recent encounter with Ramsey. It was easier not to. Confessing to him would have raised questions about where she had been and what she had been planning to do.
She also expected he would have been pretty annoyed to know she had gotten into a row with Ramsey. They didn't need to make him anymore of an enemy than they already suspected he was. Although Charlotte couldn't help but acknowledge the veil of doubt regarding his true motives that was now clouding her mind. Those worries had kept her awake most of the night.
She was embarrassed too, sickeningly so. She knew she had sounded no better than a spoilt child. It was mortifying. Plus she had lost the battle of words with him, slinking back to her room, her pride wounded.
"Are you sure?" James pressed, interrupting her thoughts. She nodded her head, meeting his apprehensive green gaze, her cheeks ablaze. She reached forward, pressing her hand to his knee and stilling the movement.
"Yes," she breathed.
"Is everything okay? You seem..." he started.
"Why wouldn't it be?"
"You're acting strange," he said. "You have hardly said two words since yesterday".
"I have nothing to say," she shrugged, deliberately biting her tongue to stop herself from pointing out how odd he was acting. It wasn't just her. "I just need to get on with this".
"Charlotte?" he exhaled. Charlotte gazed at him. She was doing nothing and yet he was looking at her as if she was tormenting him.
She forced a smile. "I'm fine, James. I'm just... nervous," she bluffed, "but I'm fine".
James nodded, his eyes clouding. "That's it?"
"Why? Is there something else I should be worried about?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. He frowned, and she wondered for a moment if he was going to tell her what had been bothering him so much yesterday, what he had been discussing with Ethan, but he seemed not to remember that.
"No, nothing," he replied, his tone a little sore with her lack of response.
She smiled at him, a winning smile that twisted every muscle in her face into obedient compliance. "Well then, I'm just nervous about meeting them".
James looked as if he was about to argue against her explanation, his mouth opening and his brow furrowing when a female voice called across the crowded room, disturbing them.
YOU ARE READING
Feared
Science Fiction'Play the game, she thought, remembering the only three words that had helped her to survive at Kingston. Only back then she had known the game, she had known what they wanted her to be, what they had wanted her to do - this man was different. She d...
