Chapter 73: Mood

"Who's hungry?" Lewis walked in with numerous plastic bags hanging on the lower portion of both his arms. He had paired his grey flannel jersey with a luminous green scarf; and to be honest, he looked like a dork.

"I'll pass," I replied, while Caspian continued to fiddle with my hair. "Stop," I ordered half- heartedly, since I was actually enjoying the way his fingertips combed through my curls. 'You'll make it frizzy." I rolled my eyes when Caspian smirked, and proceeded to stroke my hair with both his hands instead of just one.

"I'm hungry." Caspian suddenly realised he ought to answer Lewis, if he had any hope of being fed. He raised his hand up in the air and waved it around, like a school child who was dying to answer a question and show off how smart he was to the rest of the class.

"Of course you are," Rosalind winked my way.

Lewis was too preoccupied with food to care, but Caspian looked at me in confusion. Us two girls giggled in reply, not wanting to give away our inside joke.

"You guy should probably eat, you'll need your energy." As Lewis bit into his hamburger, tomato sauce squirted out of the side of his mouth, bearing a vague resemblance to blood. "We still need to find that psychopath."

And just like that the light-hearted mood was replaced by something a lot more sinister. The task ahead hung over us like a dark, shadowy cloud that was fat with the amount of water it had collected; yet it would only rain and offer us relief when Janet was behind bars.

Caspian squeezed my hand sensing my discomfort. He knew that this was one of the few times, I didn't want him to comfort me with words, his touch was enough. I wanted my mind to think about all the horrible things I could put Janet through, hoping she would never be able to close her eyes without remembering how many lives she had taken.

The only sound in the room was the sound of the leaking faucet in the bathroom. Even Lewis had quietened down his chewing. I couldn't remain in the prison the silence offered and instead paced around the room, making sure to make each step heard. The room wasn't large, but it didn't need to be: it was just for Caspian and myself. Rosalind and Lewis slept in the adjacent bedroom. Well, maybe slept wasn't the right word, I mean, none of us had slept in the two days that we had been here. We had just lain awake in bed and waited for Janet to move the next piece on the chessboard, before we could make a move against her. But her activity had been less than non-existent, so we had no clue as to where we should start looking.

I continued to pace around the small motel room, that was the only place that would house us on such short notice. I walked past the small flat-screen that balanced precariously on a single nail, nailed into the rust-coloured wall. There was a double bed situated in the middle of the room, it was stained brown with a substance I didn't want to know the name of. Next to the bed sat an uncomfortable air mattress, that was probably for older couples who had children. If I was a mom, I'd rather squeeze into the bed than place my child on an air- filled lump that would leave them with neck pains in the morning.

"You're making me dizzy." Caspian grabbed me around the waist and forced me to plop my body down next to his.

"Sorry," I muttered, pulling my skirt down, since it had ridden halfway up my thighs.

"We're going to figure this out," Lewis added.

"Hopefully," Caspian mumbled, so low I could barely hear him. I was pretty certain there was no way Rosalind or Lewis would have heard him, I wasn't even sure if he had wanted me to hear him.

Caspian munched on his french-fries and held one up to my mouth. I opened my mouth, so that he could place it in, but he jerked his hand away and popped the chip into his mouth.

"Thought you weren't hungry," Caspian teased, trying to restore the playful atmosphere of earlier, but that feeling was long gone and I highly doubted any amount of joking and teasing could bring it back.

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