Nominees:
Da Vinci's Muse - Kimibloom
The Warning Sign - Bloomiecurse
The Warning Sign
Excerpt from chapter Three
“Bloody fuckin’ hell!” Victoria hissed through her clenched teeth, slamming the steering-wheel as she forced her Mini Cooper to slow down and finally stop on the highway, her silver car forming the tail of a long colored metallic snake.
She didn’t need a traffic jam! Not in that very moment! The meeting had already started twenty minutes ago, and she was still on her way to Daniel’s office. This was a true disgrace!
Muttering curses under her breath, she wore her ear-gear and dialed Lennon’s number: she had to let him know at least, and beg him to find a reasonable excuse with Daniel.
Lennon’s phone rang over and over again and she started tapping her fingers on the steering-wheel nervously, while trying to understand what had happened exactly. This highway was usually quite free this time of the day.
…
She rummaged her purse to take out her packet of cigarettes, and turned off the engine.
There was no need to keep intoxicating the air if she couldn’t get a chance to move an inch further, after all! She lit up her cigarette and turned her head to look outside her car window. The sky was getting darker and clouds were welling up belligerently, forming swift and strange figures. She would have started guessing their shapes, like when she was a child, but the slow movement of the metallic colored snake brought her attention back to reality.
She turned the engine on again and slowly shifted into gear to proceed a bit further.
London’s weather was getting crappy once again, but this wouldn’t bother her much, were it another average day. The fact was that everything seemed to go the wrong way that day, and she was only wishing to get out of that mess as soon as possible! Not to mention the fact hat she was starting to suffer from serious caffeine withdrawal. In the rush of the morning she had avoided having her morning dose intentionally, so as not to waste a single minute, and now it was the only thing she could think of.
If she recalled right, there should have been a sort of resting area in close vicinity, and if it hadn’t taken ages she could have stopped there for a coffee and maybe waiting for all this hell to turn back into normality. She hummed drolly over the song played by the radio and felt comforted by the idea of getting some hot coffee soon. The world didn’t suck so much, after all!
Twenty minutes later she was parking her car in the huge resting area’s parking lot. It turned out that there had been a serious accident and that probably things would remain still for a while. As she got off her car her attention was hit by the roar of a powerful motorbike, a black glowing Honda Steed pulling up in a parking lot in front of her. The man driving it gave a quick glance around and took off his full-fingered gloves before raising his hands to his black helmet to release the chin strap. For an instant his eyes lingered over her, dark round intense pools, but when they met hers they quickly shifted elsewhere. She shook herself from that sort of odd surprise her heart had gotten caught into for such a simple action, locked her car and strode towards the coffee-shop entrance, fingers playing nervously with her car keys.
She sat at a table facing the huge coffee-shop window: it had just started raining and she adored watching the world outside fading its colors to gray when rain used to wash it. Not that the landscape could have given her particular impressions, as all around there only were anonymous cement constructions, monuments to manhood progress!
But it was another one of her weird habits, something she used to do absent-mindedly, even at home: standing in front of the window and observe the world outside being distorted by rain.
Distorted and purified.
She ordered a large black coffee with a croissant, and took out her handy from her bag, struggling with the loads of things she used to bring around in it. She intended to give Lennon updates about her hopeless morning adventure through London traffic, via sms. She wouldn’t disturb the meeting once more and possibly put Lennon in a difficult position with Daniel. But she did want to let them know the real reason why of her absence and to her this seemed the most harmless way.
She started tapping her fingers over the keypad when her thoughts were disturbed by a deep male voice.
“Do you mind if I sit here, Miss?”
She raised her eyes to find out whom the voice belonged to, and was struck by the intensity of the gaze of the man in front of her.
Her soul was surprisingly shaken by simply staring at him, and it took her a short while before she could articulate an answer.
“Aermm…” she quickly looked around to find out to her own dismay that the Cafè was overcrowded. “Sure!” she then resigned to say yes, weird sensations stirring deep inside of her. “Have a seat!” she then added raising her arm in the direction of the chair across the table.
“Thanks!” the man sat in front of her and smiled warmly, white teeth appearing timidly through his pink lips.