Smoke and Mirrors (Smoke #1)

[ 45 ]

Stretching out my arms, a long, exhausted sound escaped from my lips.  It had been a busy night at the agency as I stayed back late to work on both my junior sport journalist duties, as well as to countinue with the investigation for Charlotte; clearly, neither hadn't been doing too much to help with my sudden change of sleeping. Typing up an interview I recently did with Mason Cox, a mature aged footballer from the United States who were picked up by Collingwood in last years' rookie draft, I could feel there was a different feel about the agency tonight.

Kyle thankfully ended up going home which wasn't my concern at all. Madeline and a couple of the other reporters said that they had to head home to work on their articles which was cool too but of course normal, so it couldn't have been any of them making me feel suddenly paranoid, could it?

I cleared my throat and continued typing, assuming that it was just Michael who kept me anxious. The paranoia I'd been getting because of him was hardly surprsing as it was clear to me that the last few nights had caused problems when I tried to get to sleep. I was curious. Had this only been a stupid phrase or, a terrible habit that would be hard to kill?

I began tapping my fingers against the wood of the desk and began humming the tune to Kindly Calm Me Down by Meghan Trainor when suddenly, I overheard a rather loud cry for help emerging from behind me. Turning around, I could see Tyler running up to me which was quite terrifying sight to the boy usually with a stupid expression on his face was now yelling for help.

"Scarlett. Scarlett. Yo- you gotta help me, please." He shouted panicky as he suddenly gripped my arms in total fear. I was scared but put on a brave face and grabbed his wrists, screaming out his name in hopes to get him to calm down.

"Tyler!" I yelled at the top of my lungs, his frazzled state suddenly died down as heavy heaves of breaths escape his breath. Looking at his eyes, I felt my heart sink, realising that whatever was going was probably going to be a whole lot of trouble for the two of us.

"What's the matter?" 

"I... I... I don't know, but it's Derrick. I was at his office and... And we were just talking when he just - I don't know. He was just angry and mad and I think he." He gazed around the room, dazed and confused before looking back at me with a lowered tone. "He just suddenly collapsed.I don't know what to do Scarlett, you gotta help me, please." Tyler fearful screamed when I looked quickly at him. His usual blonde hair was tousled, his smug face was now filled with so much fear that it was beginning to really scare me.

"What do you mean that he just collapsed?"

"I - I mean what I mean Scarlett. Derrick just fell to the gr - ground right before my very eyes. He was - I don't know okay? He just fell and I don't know what I'm meant to do." He cried out, his eyes sparkling with fear as I gulped. 

"Okay, please just calm down. Go get help and I'll go see how Derrick is." I said trembling. As much as I was irritated by the man, right now wasn't the time to let my boss possibly die when there was a huge chance that I could save him. I shut the lid of my laptop and rushed towards his office, scanning around the area to see if there was any trouble occurring but instead was shocked to find Derrick causally pacing around his office holding a glass of wine in his hands.

"Derrick?"

"Good evening Miss Wilde." He said softly as he avoided any eye contact with me. I looked around in fear at the room and had just relieased that I had unfortunately had been played - both by Tyler and Derrick. I stared at the ground in amusement and just chuckled, shaking my head in complete disagreement.

"Absolutely pathetic." I said to myself as Derrick turned around and faced me, his expression was blank making it extremely difficult to know what he was thinking.