Snippet #2564273

As though alarms were blaring in her head, Jennifer was wincing every few moments, pain forcing her to toe the line between action and passiveness. An instinct in her heart, her throat, her very blood was telling her to be ready for a fight. Slip out of the chair, out of the room, take up position to tackle and subdue if the target was to run. Be prepared, be prepared, be prepared...but an artificial voice, masculine and cruel, wouldn't let her body move as it wanted. It was telling her to be still, be liquid, be weakness. No one would attack weakness. For a while, the battle raged inside her. To follow an instinct that she wasn't sure her body could handle, or to be still and preserve a life that didn't even matter.

Finally, she resigned herself to stay seated, but her eyes stayed glued on the rushing woman. Jennifer's eyes, for once, looked full of life; one could almost see the thoughts whirring, the things around her being recorded, the life dancing inside. She looked, honestly, alive, in comparison to the brain-dead body that carted itself around. Though dangerous as the situation might have been, her thoughts were all locked on what the Blondie had said.

"Jennifer Heathers is a lioness my friend."

He thought of her as a lioness. Or, rather, the her that HAD been. He thought that much of her. She wanted to be giddy, to smile and to dance in the way that the men had shown her, but now was definitely not the time. A lioness. A lioness. The moon. All these strong things that she might have been, once, and might be, once again. Still. Not the time.

Allowing her eyes to drift, Jennifer found her gaze on the man that was sitting hunched in the corner, his eyes narrowed as he watched the events around them unfold. Strange, strange, not to be trusted, something told her, so she angled her body towards him, fixing him under a stare that she hoped was unnerving, or maybe even a little uncomfortable.