Bounty Hunter [REWRITTEN VERSION]

Chapter 11: Night Tea

MAIZE

That night she couldn't sleep.

Maize tossed and turned under the sheets of her bed. In her mind flashed images. Dreams. Memories. An unsettling merge of visions which kept her thrashing and unconsciously kicking out. A dagger—one that was kept under her pillow—whipped out as all of a sudden the hallucination crashed and Maize woke with a start. She held the six-inch blade in front of her face, shielding herself, protecting herself, defending herself. From something that was no longer there. Her pulse was racing.

Her widened eyes blinked once, eyes adjusting to the dark. It wasn't the darkness she had been remembering, it was simply, a room. Her room. That was right.

Her room.

Safehouse.

Mexico.

Far away.

She began to regain her senses, sitting up in her bed as she fought to calm the heavy breathing she had only just become aware of. She had lost control. She had panicked. But why? It had been a while since she had woken to dreams like that, so why now? Was it the apprehension building up—the feeling that soon, something was about to go very wrong? Was it just the job itself that had been getting to her without her realizing it?

Why now?

Maize needed a distraction. Her heart rate had still not yet calmed down to its initial pace, and her breathing was still shaky. Her fist clenched around the knife still in her hand, trembling now out of rage rather than fear. Rage because she had felt fear, that she had let it get to her. She told herself she would let it go, but the memories still refused to leave her alone even now. Even after all she had done to forget. She needed a distraction...

Maize silently slipped out of the messed up sheets, ignoring how crumpled and tossed the sheets looked only reminded her of what she had felt in her sleep. She pushed it down. Moving to her closet quickly and making heed to not make any noise that might alert the other two in the house, she grabbed a sweater and pulled it over her shoulders. At least the soft cotton did something to provide some semblance of easing comfort.

She left her room and headed silently down the hall. Maize always did know how to move with ease, controlling the amount of sound she made at any given time, so she didn't worry when she passed the doors of the other two. Neither needed to know she was up.

She went to the kitchen to do one of the only two things she knew how to do after experiencing one of these kinds of nightmares—and since she couldn't easily go out and beat the crap out of some criminal—she opted to make tea instead.

She prepared a kettle of water and grabbed a bag of herbal tea. Then she removed the small little container from her pocket that she had brought from her room and sat it next to the mug as she waited in silence.

She got caught up watching the water slowly boil that she had yet to hear the approaching noise until there was a step on the floorboards behind her. With her mind out of place, her body reacted on instinct. Without thinking Maize had whipped out her dagger again had it pointed at the oncomer, pulse jolting.

The sudden rush of adrenaline she had received in that instant stilled as she laid sight on who it was.

"Um...I surrender?"

Maize immediately dropped her blade arm and began cursing under her breath at the detective, who still held his hands laxly in the air as if unsure whether it was entirely safe to put them down or not.

"What are you doing awake?" she murmured to distract him as she hid the blade under her hood once again.

"I could ask you the same question," Alec returned smoothly, his tone lacking the tone of accusation Maize had been expecting. His expression was rather slack, and his eyes were unreadable. She couldn't tell whether or not he seemed suspicious, concerned, or somewhere in between the two.