Chapter 2: Battling Thieves
The dark corridor led to a small wooden door encased in a layer of bottle-green paint. The door was firmly shut, barring any uninvited entrance. I wordlessly stood before the door, suddenly feeling doubtful about my next step.
Just as I was pondering what to do next, a youthful voice crisply sounded from the darkness.
"You... you're that foolish woman from before..."
Foolish woman?
Nonplussed, I looked into the looming darkness and a pair of gleaming, blue eyes stared back at me. Nietzsche's quote ran through my mind right on cue, "Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." The outline of a man was vague through the blackness, fading and distant, as though the person was speaking from another realm entirely—a realm of plutonic nature. Of course, I did not think him to be a monster. Hardly. It was but a thought racing through my mind, then vanishing into nothingness.
"Pardon me, sir, do you mean me?" I enquired, with my brows raising inquisitively at the blue-eyed figure. His voice was unfamiliar.
"Yes, of course, it's you, who else would it be in this deserted passageway?" The person muttered softly, emotionlessly. My lips twisted, thinking to myself, How was I to know that you weren't muttering drunkenly to yourself?
The figure paused thoughtfully, not noticing the hint of displeasure in my gaze, before adding, blue eyes gleaming in the dark, "You don't happen to have forgotten seeing me, do you?" He sounded almost as though his ego had been threatened by a lesser being, like a big cat addressing a mouse that had stepped on its tail.
"I'm sorry if you haven't noticed, sir, but it's quite dark in here," I replied, pointing a finger at the direction I had come from, "It's not the environment you would want to be seeing people in."
I then heard an exasperated sigh in the darkness before there was a soft sound—a footfall—as the figure stepped out of the darkness of the niche he had leaned on.
As he approached me with certain poise and gravity in his steps, the dim torchlight shone on his charming young features—his head of brown hair, enchanting steel-blue eyes, and crooked spectacles. At the sight of him, a light bulb should have lit up atop my head as I cracked a dogged smile. "You're the youngster whose twenty levels behind Mr. Gorgeous," I blurted, audibly, and I think I might have seen his brow twitch.
He sighed, as though expecting me to say that, but a tinge of surprise lingered in his eyes. "Well, I guess I shouldn't be surprised"—he fell silent again and glanced at the door. There was no sound from inside. I was certain the door wasn't sound-proofed either, last time I had checked, but his enthralling eyes nonetheless remained on the door expectantly, as though awaiting something - or someone - to jump out.
His blue eyes examined me through the lenses that were shed upon a dim, orangish light.
In a lowered voice, he said, "But we should probably whisper. I wouldn't want whoever's inside there catching a whiff of the noise we're making...especially a certain someone who abhors noise and..." His eyes remained on me a little longer, trying to unearth something from my face. I winked at him and he tightly shut his eyes in response, "...Nevermind."
"Oh, please do not leave me in suspense! I am dying to know who this 'someone' is and what else is on their hate-list," I whispered, unable to keep a grin off my face.
He looked at me as though I was kidding before his gaze flickered and he turned his eyes back to the door. "I was about to say 'women' as part of that...'hate list, you called it?" He glanced at me, and I stared at him with the most expressive of faces you could hope to attain from a woman in the face of male chauvinism. "And, as for that person's identity, you needn't concern yourself, Miss...?" He paused, realizing that he had been conversing with an utter stranger.
"Miss Madison Long, or Maddie. Or 'foolish woman', if you want to experience my fist. Not to boast, but many have called me an undiscovered gem in boxing. I do wish you one day have the chance of saying the same," I said, and he gave me a curt nod, turning his face away. Call it a trick of the light, but I might have caught a glimpse of an amused smile on the young man's face. He turned his face to me and, indeed, he was smiling, with a flicker of amusement in his eyes.
"My name is Eugene Alastair. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Long," he said, my name sliding off his tongue with unusual meaningfulness, and he gently took my hand which was extended to him. His hand was gloved, I noticed. A scarlet glove seemingly exorbitant enough to have bought my entire assets. There was a golden crest on the glove, of white oleander in full bloom. If I was correct, oleanders were incredibly poisonous.
With the image of the toxic flower obscured from my view, Eugene bent his back slightly and planted a soft, platonic kiss on the back of my hand. His smile as he looked up at me, still grasping my hand in his, abruptly seemed shrewd and artful, like a fox's amused grin. I quickly swiped my hand away and attempted to maintain a smile, hoping that my confusion was not portrayed on my scalp. "I think receiving a kiss from you might be an invitation to experience a potential boxer's might. Don't you agree, Sir Eugene?"
He straightened his back and arched a brow at me, still smiling, the scene behind him obscured by stygian darkness. "Whatever could you mean, Miss Long? It is but a single, chaste kiss, and one of many others, I believe?" he uttered. No, it isn't. It's the first time someone has kissed me there, I wanted to say but promptly bit my lip.
"What makes you so staunchly believe that I've had my hand pecked by others?"
"Well, earlier, you showed very abysmal talent in theatre when you threw yourself onto...my superior," he answered, his eyes returning once again to the door which made me conscious of the briefcase now hanging from one hand. But the briefcase was the least of my worries when I heard him say threw yourself onto my superior. I seemed to have heard my last bit of restrain snapping with a loud, angry noise.
The darn rascal with annoyingly beautiful eyes and an annoyingly charming smile! I have never thrown myself onto anyone, leave alone on his superior either!
"Sir Eugene," I managed to spell out his name correctly, without adding any depreciative clauses to it, "I kindly suggest that you straighten your spectacles and visit the optician while at it. Would you mind taking a detour and going via the doctor's office as well, for it seems that you're experiencing adverse effects from ingesting hallucinatory substances. To have seen me taking advantage of your superior whom I barely know? Well, that is simply preposterous and unthinkable!"
He snorted. There was now a trace of contempt in his tone. "Is it now? Well, thank you for your concern about my health, Miss Madison, but I'm eating much better than you are, judging from your..." His eyes ran up and down my body, lingering on certain...imperative parts. "...figure."
Both of us were now no longer whispering. Our volumes were well past inaudible and were bordering hellishly noisy. Quite a pity for the good chap he mentioned who loathed women and noise. I, however, had never planned to cater to the needs of a chauvinist.
"Now, don't you go saying anything about my figure!"
"Or else what? I'll experience your so-called undiscovered exactitude in boxing?"
"Yes, exactly! I'm glad to see you're anticipating it."
Eugene shot me a frosty glare, and I returned it.
"You don't happen to have forgotten that you're facing a man, do you?"
"What of it, sir? Do you want to deny your male nature and adopt femininity?"
"No, you know I never said that, Miss Long!"
"No, I don't know, Mr. Alastair. Are you being shy now about your desire? Don't fret; we ladies are always very welcoming of new supporters of womanhood!"
Eugene inhaled sharply, as though withholding something. I think it might have been anger. He parted his lips to speak, his eyes very expressive. "I..." Suddenly, his words were cut off by a loud, ear-splitting bang as the door which had been still and noiseless thus far was opened. But, instead of being opened through the normal means we all know and love, it was kicked by some mighty force.
Splinters of green wood were scraped off the door as it was opened, revealing a tall, austere figure - a very livid figure. I think I could have nearly touched the anger from where I was. The dark, erect figure stood against the brighter, golden light within the room, resembling the moon on the solar eclipse, dark and foreboding.
A pair of piercing dark eyes shot to Eugene. And here I was thinking I would never see the young man show anxiety on his face. Well, I was wrong.
"Mr. Alastair, what happened to 'keep quiet'?" A voice cooler than a blizzard made the blood in my veins run cold.
I shuddered, eyes riveting to that flawless figure that seemed one with the night itself. I was terrified - afraid of my trembling heart that was palpitating sporadically with the unsettling urge to put down this unchallenged existence on a canvas. Surely, there must be a problem with me; I was thinking of painting him, instead of running for my dear life!
Ah, Maddie, get a hold of yourself! He's just a little handsome, isn't he? A little voice echoed from the deep recesses of my heart, and my fingers - where I could almost feel the firm wood of the brush which I had not held for years... - trembled.
At the query, Eugene could only glance at me. What happened to silence? his gaze seemed to say.
"Would you mind answering that, Miss Madison?" Eugene smiled at me, and a certain wrathful gaze fixed itself on me. The traitor! I think I might have very well wrung his neck right then were it not for the disquieting presence some steps away. Now, there was a more pressing issue besides wringing the man's neck, by which I mean thinking of a reply that could save my skin and definitely not that of Sir Alastair's.
"Haha...well...uh..." I gulped, my eyes riveting between Eugene and Mr. Wrathful but Still Gorgeous.
"Sir Alastair and I were..." I could hear my heart drumming wildly against my chest, "...battling thieves...?" And I think I might have seen Eugene's face being creased by the sourest smile on the planet.
Mr. Gorgeous looked at me dubiously. "What?"
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