Fear is a curious creature...and when mixed with so many other emotions...emotions that should never be mixed in the same pot, it made everything that much more complicated.
Tyler had been staring at Mikhail for almost two hours without saying a word. He would stare back every now and again, daring her to speak a word with dangerous eyes, before directing his attention to his cell phone.
A twisted part of Tyler found it comical, even through all the fear, that someone as dangerous as Mikhail new how to text so well...it was even more comical when she thought about how it had looked when he was learning how to text. One could not point a gun or spew threats at phones as one could do with humans.
She watched him as he spoke in heavily accented Russian to someone on the phone and visibly began to smile when she thought of him texting something like, "OMG" or "LMFAO." Was it possible for Mikhail Petrova to ever, "LMFAO"?
"Would you like to share what is so funny with the rest of the class, Tyler." Mikhail's stern voice yanked her kicking and screaming from her thoughts, but she refused to answer him regardless.
Tyler simply scowled at him, and imagined that somehow, her gaze could burn a hole through his head.
Mikhail let that cocky sneer pass over his face, and the message it sent was received loud and clear. It read, "Just give me some time, and I will provoke you into making a mistake."
He regarded her with curious, but unreadable eyes for a moment, before pulling a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and offering her one.
She reached out and took one, but never broke the contact held by their eyes. Everything Mikhail did had always had a double meaning. Even the smallest of gestures...Tyler lit up her cigarette and took a long drag off of it. She had never been much of a smoker, but in her eyes, this situation warranted tobacco.
"Ah...I know..." Mikhail broke the short silence finally, as he too lit up a cigarette.
"And what do you know, brother dearest." Tyler sighed, feeling slightly braver on the other side of the Limo and out of arms reach.
Mikhail ignored the sarcasm, and reached into his pocket to pull something else out. "Nadia asked that give this to you tonight." His voice had suddenly turned icy cold again as he let dangle a gold claddaugh ring from his fingers, the perfect and polished green emerald shimmering against the soft glow of light from one of the over head lights.
"You do know what this is, do you not?" Mikhail asked, and as the realization dawned on Tyler's face, his expression became almost devilish.
"M...m....My mother's ring..." Tyler whispered, dousing her cigarette in the crystal ash tray on one of the center consoles and reaching for it...an action that she immediately regretted when his long fingers wrapped around her wrist and forced her across to sit beside him.
"Nadia is still there." Tyler said aloud, though only meaning to think it to herself as she gazed at her mother's ring.
