How To Screw Yourself Over

Chapter 2.8: A Tea Party Abduction

"Oh noooo—" Ash's hands rise to her cheeks in faux distress. "The young miss was kidnapped. Whatever shall we do?"

The guard kicks her from behind, forcing her to stagger forward. The sole of his shoe leaves a solid imprint on her back. She hisses as she reaches to touch it. That will leave a nasty bruise.

"Shut the fuck up," the guard bites out, seething with anger. As if frustrated by his inability to protect the young miss, every word that leaves him is strained. "We must report back to the duke."

Ash shrugs. "Sure, then what?"

"We will locate the perpetrator and retrieve the young miss." He doesn't even consider the possibility of her death.

Well, even though Ash is making fun of him, this assumption is a reasonable one. If her abductors wanted her dead, they wouldn't have gone through the trouble of kidnapping her. Besides, Ash wouldn't be a slave if Harriet perished.

Having reached this conclusion, Ash quiets down, her interest in the subject lost. Traveling at top speed, the two rush back to the mansion to receive a thorough reprimanding.

As upset as he is, the duke doesn't immediately punish them, seeing as he hadn't expected a sudden abduction either. It's not everyday that a duke's daughter is abruptly snatched directly off the grounds of an allied noble's tea party.

The thought makes Ash wince. It never once occurred to her that she'd one day place the word "tea party" in such a solemn-sounding sentence.

A tea party abduction.

It sounds like the start of a bad British joke.

"Hey, pay attention." Bernard smacks her face. "Were you listening at all?"

"No, why?"

"Take this seriously! The young miss may be in serious danger." His frown takes on a more severe edge, no doubt imagining what his beloved young miss must be experiencing.

Ash sees right through him. "Knock those revolting thoughts out of your mind. Even if you fantasize about obtaining her body, not everyone is the same way."

She receives yet another swift smack. "It's the truth!"

He only responds as he continues forwards, driven by purpose. "I don't care if you're jealous; you must put your best efforts into this operation!"

Ash instantly latches onto the word entirely incongruous with any reality. "Jealous?"

"Don't let your personal feelings interfere with your duty." He doesn't look back as he speaks.

This man is spewing bullshit. "You are the least qualified to say this."

"My feelings only happen to coincide with our duties," he argues.

When Ash scoffs in lieu of a proper reply, the guard abruptly stops and turns to face her. He speaks with an especially somber appearance. "I am usually generous enough to indulge you, but you should not allow my feelings toward the young miss affect your behavior towards her—especially not at a time like this."

Ash freezes as the nonchalance and flippancy speedily melts off her face.

Then, in a particularly extraordinary way, her features contort until they are almost unrecognizable. With an expression perfectly displaying a mixture of disgust, affront, and areyoufuckingretarded, Ash's foot slams into the guard's abdomen with excessive force.

Just before he crumples to the ground, Ash pulls him to her eye-level, grasping at his shirt. With more malice than an actual evil spirit, she very nearly hisses all of her words. "Am I correct in assuming that you are under the—entirely unfounded—impression that I am in love with you?"

He founders around a bit, recovering his natural goofiness. The fool tries to hide his silly core with his stoicity, but Ash isn't as stupid as he is. Seeing how eager she is too see his blood, he rushes to defend himself, guiltlessly abandoning his impassive mask. "Even if I am incorrect, my idea is not 'entirely unfounded!'"

Ash doesn't respond, but the enmity in her expression grows stronger at a visible rate.

A bit panicked now, his words jumble together. "You only approached me! You only say the bare minimum required of you when speaking to anyone else! You dislike the young miss, you find trouble for me, you tease me all the time, you cling to me—"

"When have I ever clung to you?" Her expression is indescribable.

"You are right now!"

Ash throws him backwards in a peculiar mixture of disgust and confusion. What the hell? "I am threatening you. How the hell do you view our interactions?" She's a little disturbed, not going to lie.

He opens and closes his mouth helplessly, wanting to explain yet unable to. "I-I may have exaggerated a tad, but you have no concept of what personal space is! I've never seen you willingly come as close to anyone else as you usually are to me!"

Ash pauses for a moment, searching through her memories of her conversations with others. It's futile.

Ash has a headache. Why the hell does he have to be right about this?

Ash didn't need to approach anyone else, so she hadn't. The guard was useful in tempering her skills, so she fought against him. The guard is often her partner, so she converses with him when her capacity for inactivity reached its limits.

When Ash pairs these facts with her subtle hostility towards the young miss, she unwillingly suppresses her raging anger. "Fine, I see how you might have mistaken my behavior for something else. I don't care anymore, let's go save the young miss."

His foolish expression is instantly replaced by seriousness. "We don't know where the young miss is."

"I do," Ash walks ahead of him. "Or, at the very least, I know where to look."

"How?"

"Do you remember when we went to the marketplace yesterday? There was a man, a strong one, who stared at the young miss for a good hour."

His hand closes over her neck as his aggression resurfaces. "Why did you report it?"

As a blade of wind instantly whirls towards his wrist. Bernard clicks his tongue as retracting his arm before the blade sliced through the space his wrist previously lay.

"Don't test me," she sneers. "I hold the key to the young miss's safe return. Shouldn't you be grateful?"

Ash assists him out of the goodness of her heart and this is the reply she receives. It isn't hard to see why Ash wants to push the bullshit aside and speed this up. When his usefulness is expended, Ash will take great joy in murdering this man, immature as he is.

In response to her threats, the guard bristles, holding enough anger to fuel a rocket.

Realizing that placating him before he explodes would minimize the number of cumbersome things she must deal with, Ash throws out an extra sentence. "Besides, who would've believed me if I said there was a demon in a human kingdom's marketplace?"

Bernard stills immediately.

She feels rather pleased. Even if she can't kill him, she can still crush his spirits. If she finds the right spices, she can even irritate the wounds that will soon liter his form. Ash can't wait.

A/N: I swear that I originally intended to uphold my promise of chapters at 1:00 GMT time, but my fricking reminders don't want to cooperate. I'll have that settled soon, promise.

Anyway, I'm not all that pleased with the way this chapter turned out, but I've posted worse so I have no right to claim that this one is beyond redemption. It's probably fine.

And finally, I'd like to draw your attention to the lovely DeadlyScholar, who has once again edited this chapter for me. Hopefully, there are no remaining errors.