I growl under my breath. I do not want the Head to keep breathing. She is a cruel woman.
“If you knew what she was really like, you wouldn’t stop me.”
“Go to your room, Electra,” he says, his voice stern and reminding me of all the goodness I felt over his thighs.
I grit my teeth. I don’t want to go to my room. I want to drive this knife into that woman’s chest and feel the warmth of her blood bathe my hands. I want to hear the rattle of her final breaths. I want to end her, and everything she has made.
“Give me the knife, and go to your room,” he repeats.
I look at Tom and the anger fades. As long as I don’t see that woman, I can be rational. When I look at her, I feel myself getting out of control again.
“You don’t know what she really is,” I hiss. “She’s an evil person. The things she has done to me. To others… she deserves to die.”
The Head says nothing, just stands there and watches me with her lips pressed together.
“She doesn’t even deny it,” I point out. “She knows what should happen to her. She should bleed, and then everybody would be free.”
“Give me the knife,” he repeats. “And go to your room.”
I don’t give him the knife. I don’t trust myself to hand it over. Instead, I throw it. Hard. Blade first against the wall so it sinks in deep. Then I turn and go back to my room, stomping all the way and slamming the door when I am there. With the door closed behind me, I look down and realize my mistake.
Dammit. This is the one with the pink bed.
Tom
“Impressive,” the Head says as I usher her toward the elevator doors. I’m trying to escort her out of what Electra clearly considers to be her territory. I don’t think the Head should be making appearances here, certainly not in the short term. It’s going to set Electra back every time she sees the woman.
“Are you throwing me out of a part of my own facility, Doctor Ares?” There is cool amusement in the Head’s tone.
“You shouldn’t be here. It’s not safe. She truly hates you.”
“I know.” The woman is unperturbed. “Truth be told, if she did manage to reach me, she would probably be owed a bounty of my blood.”
“One reckless woman is enough to handle,” I tell her. “I don’t need two of you acting out.”
The Head is in her fifties at the least, but I suspect she’s older. She is no impulsive young woman. She knows better than to put herself in harm’s way like this. She should be staying away. It has only been a matter of hours since Electra came out of what seems to be more or less a lifetime of solitary confinement. She knows it isn’t safe. So why is she here?
“Why are you here?” I ask the question bluntly.
“Doctor, you have a habit of speaking to me like one of your patients,” she says her voice taking on a terse edge. “I do not care for it.”
“Well, I’m sorry, ma’am, but I think Electra needs some space and some time to forget the circumstances of her incarceration. More than two hours, at least.”
“I will be keeping a close eye on this, Doctor Ares.”
“I hope so.”
It is hard to usher my boss out of the apartment without coming across as though I’m ordering her around.
“You’d like me to leave?”
“I would.”
“Careful, Doctor Ares. You are bordering on the insubordinate.”
“I’d rather be a little insubordinate now than have to reattach your jugular sometime in the next few minutes.”
The Head smiles and her expression lightens. “Well, that would be unfortunate, wouldn’t it.”
“It would be.”
I can hear thuds coming from the room Electra said wasn’t hers.
“I will leave you to your charge,” she says. “Report to me tomorrow, Doctor Ares.”
I’m fairly certain that she has no need for me to report to her tomorrow, but we both know she cannot leave without giving an order.
“Absolutely, ma’am.”
She fixes me with that cool authoritarian glare, but I could swear there is a smile on her face as she steps onto the elevator.
I breathe a sigh of relief as the doors close. One feral woman is trouble. An alpha female like the Head sniffing around, riling her up, is more than I can take. The women in this facility are tough. These two might be the toughest of them all, and they seem to hate each other, or at least, Electra hates the Head. It’s impossible to tell what the Head feels about her. Feelings aren’t the woman’s forte.
“Electra?”
I enter the bedroom, expecting to be confronted with total chaos. Instead, all I see is a fabric burrito lying on the bed. She has wrapped herself in the pink duvet with only her feet poking out the bottom.