“Hey! Where are you going?” Ruth called after her.
Pierce realized she had abandoned Ruth the moment President Ducix broke their eye contact. She shoved her way through a couple making out, ignoring their complaints. Slow down, she thought to herself. You’re attracting too much attention.
“At least wait for me.” Ruth tried to follow her through the jungle of arms and legs. “No need to be rude and ditch me,” he mumbled under his breath, completely oblivious to the fact that Pierce had caught every word he said.
She tried to force her way through a circle of women sipping fancy drinks, but received an evil eye from a woman wearing a slinky dress that shimmered beneath the chandelier like fish scales. Pierce decided to skirt around them instead of interrupting their little cocktail party. Ruth took this as a chance to catch up to her.
He reached out a hand towards her shoulder, causing Pierce to almost slap his arm away. She halted her gloved hands from making contact to his bare skin. Just barely, though.
Ruth half grinned. “You afraid of me or what? I promise you won’t die if you touch me.”
Pierce shook her head. I won’t die, but you will.
“Where are you headed off anyways?”
She was starting to get annoyed with this tag-along. “I promised you one dance. One dance, not two.”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy dancing with me. Anyways, that dance doesn’t count since we got interrupted by President Ducix’s arrival.”
This guy’s like a tick. Pierce was about halfway across the ballroom, to the President. A formidable line had formed; people who wanted to make a good impression with the President, people who wanted to meet one of the most powerful man on Earth in person, people who wanted a picture taken with the President, and people who simply wanted a handshake with the Man. Like her.
“Come on, at least wait until the line is shorter if you want to meet President Ducix so badly.” Ruth tried to distract her by pinching out holographic candles within reach.
Pierce spun around and hissed, “Get lost.”
He took a step backwards, colliding into a waiter carrying a tray of appetizers. Pierce’s eyes widened, watching the plates of hors d'oeuvres fly through the air. The plate shattered onto the marble floor, sending pieces of smoked salmon and olives everywhere.
Crap, she thought to herself. You allowed Ruth to get onto your nerves and now look what happened.
The waiter gave a hasty bow and apologized for the mess, even though it wasn’t his fault. Ruth still appeared to be shell-shocked from Pierce’s sudden outburst. She seized this opportunity to mentally gather herself together before marching on towards President Ducix.
She tossed back her hair and confidently pushed aside anyone who got in her way. Although doing so earned her a few glares, for the most part, everyone just moved out of her path. Passing by an antique grandfather clock, Pierce was surprised to find that already an hour had passed. She only had one more hour left to complete her task.
Pierce judged the ever-growing line with a critical eye. At this rate, it would take me over two hours to reach Ducix. Time to launch plan B.
