The Artist: Silence Is Tumultuous

The first thing she noticed was the soft, furry tickling sensation on her bare skin. her fingers closed around it, grasping the long strands of downy fur that reminded her of a cat. She noticed that her head was slightly more elevated than the rest of her body. so she was on a bed... quite the luxurious one, too. She heard footsteps and muted voices, as if they were behind closed doors. One stood out.Its smooth, low, silky tones waltzed into her ears and caressed her mind with a familiar cold touch-- almost like ice. Ice... Christabelle tried to force her eyes open, to no avail. her eyelids felt as if they had melted into each other.

Her last memories before her current situation came rushing back to her. Streetlights, pavement, the vile dumpster scent, pain, blood... yes, blood. Blood made her memories crystal-clear. Christabelle recognized the feral loathe and fear that she had felt while being cornered like a mouse in a trap. She hated the way they looked at her, eyeing her as if they were a pack of starved wolves who had spotted a vulnerable, wounded rabbit. She despised the prospect of being prey--she'd always preferred being the predator. But recounting that situation, it was clear to her that she was more prey than she was predator.

How'd I get here, though? she mused. Right, that dart... so they took me.

Slowly, she moved her fingers. opening and closing her fist, bringing sensation back to her fingertips. Christabelle lifted her left hand to her belt, not even surprised to find no knife there. She placed her arm back down to her side, strangely scared of moving any more than she had.

Ice's voice drifted past the doors, more urgent this time. More demanding. Christabelle couldn't make out what he said, but she was certain he was on the phone. Time ticked by, and all she did was listen. His voice was like music. His velvety tones were as downy as the sheets she lay on, almost seductive, almost loving...

The door handle turned, and she heard the hinges creak slightly as the door swung open. Christabelle's eyes forgot all about being glued shut, and shot open as if her eyelids were magnets of the same polarity. she bolted upright, and instantly regretted it. Horribly sharp pain stabbed her side, and she winced as she remembered the bullet impact. Her leg and arm didn't hurt half as much, but still gave off quite a violent sting. Her head felt like an angry fairy had stomped about

her brain with spiked boots and then drilled the insides of her skull with power drills and ice picks.

She did, however, realize that her wounds were bandaged. She forced herself to stay sitting, and heard Ice chuckle.

"You shouldn't be so hard on your own body, y'know," He purred, smiling amusedly at Christabelle, who shot him a glare. Ice was standing by the tall rectangular white double-doors of the room. Two marble beams rose on the frame of the doorway, with magnificent white marble gargoyles perched on top of them. The beams were carved with intricate tribal-floral patterns, weaving and twining into each other and forming a picture one could get lost in. Ice was a contrast to the doorways. He wore a deep blue under-tee, paired with grey-blue skinny-ripped-jeans with a chain hanging from it. Her messenger bag hung from his shoulders. A pair of dog tags hung loosely from his neck, leading down to show off his toned torso. He wasn't too buff-- a balanced mixture of lean and muscular. His pale arms carried full-sleeve tattoos, of what she couldn't decipher yet. Sunglasses were perched on his head, pushing his blond hair out of his face.

"I knew you'd be awake. How are you feeling?" He asked, sauntering closer. Christabelle inched backwards.

"Like shit," She replied curtly, analyzing the room. It was spacious, so to say the least. A large, high-ceiling bedroom with a pale-blue and white theme. To her left was a wall of barred windows. They stretched at a span of four feet from the floor to a foot from the ceiling. A warm blanket of yellow-orange sunlight radiated past the windows. Celeste-alice blue satin curtains were secured neatly to the edges of the windows. The wall opposite to the windows was a wall-to-wall, ceiling-to-floor bookshelf, filled up with old-looking books, jars of preserved snakes, and skulls. the floor was made entirely of white marble, and a polar bear skin carpet was stretched out on the center of the room, just in front of the queen-sized bed that Christabelle was on. she rubbed her bare feet nervously against the soft blue sheets, keeping her eyes trained on Ice. He chuckled, walking closer to the girl.

She edged away and snarled. Ice raised his hands up in an "I surrender" motion, taking one step back.

"want some water?" He offered. Christabelle licked her dry lips-- she was immensely thirsty, and her throat felt like a desert. Hesitantly she nodded, though she curled her knees to her chest and hugged them, shrinking away from Ice. He reached into her messenger bag and pulled out a bottle of water. Christabelle watched him with unblinking eyes, shifting uneasily as Ice sat cross-legged on the floor and set the bottle in front of him. A solid six feet away from Christabelle. Wide-eyed and bewildered, Christabelle stole a glance at Ice, who was already staring back.

the last thing she wanted to do was to interact with him. with anyone. She just wanted to be alone. "What are you trying to do?" She rasped bitterly, glaring daggers at the smirking man. He only laughed, nudging the bottle closer to her by a few inches.

"Oh, I don't know... gaining your trust, maybe? I heard serial killers need to drink too," He said, without so much as a trace of coldness in his voice. He spoke as if he'd been good friends with Christabelle all his life-- and secretly, he wished it was true. Ice had been intrigued by her--immensely interested in her since the first time The Artist was on a local news cover. But it didn't seem so creepy or pedophilic back then to say that.

"I'm not a stray cat," Christabelle nearly growled.
"On the contrary," Ice replied. "If anything, you are a stray cat."
"What're you getting at?" She eyed him warily.
"What I'm getting at is stray cats need water," He added, a thin lace of mock indignation in his voice. "Now come here. I'm trying to be nice."
"Why aren't I dead yet?" She asked, her voice a hoarse note just on the edge of a growl. Her eyes burned with tears-- not tears of sorrow or fear, but of pure rage. Ice sighed, plucking his sunglasses off his head and raking his hand through his hair.

"Look, just... just come here and take the water."
"throw it here."
"No, I can't," Ice retorted.
"Why the fuck not?!" Christabelle nearly screamed. Her dark eyes glimmered with anger-- exasperation, exhaustion, longing... longing?
"Because," Ice raised his voice slightly. "I'm taking orders. The Naja-- the king of this place, the person that told all of us Vipers to spare your life, had me do this. He commanded me to gain your trust. so can you just stop being so fucking paranoid? If i didn't kill you then, I wouldn't kill you now."

"You shot me, motherfucker!" The girl cried back. Her loathe of guns and anything firearms-related was clearly seeping through.

"You ran! what the fuck was I supposed to do, lure you with cupcakes and Silver's knife collection?!" He answered. tense silence hung in the air between them. The gargoyles stared down at Christabelle as she diverted her eyes, gazing down at the sheets. She hated emotions. "Now please, please can you just sit here and take the water?" Ice added, in a strangely calm tone. The fourteen-year-old curled deeper into fetal position, burying her face in her arms to hide the tears that streamed out of her face. She'd never felt so helpless before.

"Hey... kid, please..." Ice started, feeling rather guilty for having yelled at her. Christabelle didn't move. Something suspiciously similar to a sob broke out from her lips, and her shoulders trembled slightly. "Kid, don't... oh, what the fuck? don't cry... come on, please? Just... Christabelle--"

"Do NOT call me by that name!" She screeched, indignantly flinging a pillow at the man in her helpless frustration. The room fell silent once more. Christabelle reassumed the fetal position, while Ice still sat cross-legged on the cold tile floor. The angry-looking head of the polar bear carpet stared lifelessly in front of him. in his mind, it seemed to say "you're a loser".

Just as Ice was about to stand up and walk away, Christabelle's legs dropped down and so did her arms. She shifted wordlessly to the edge of the bed, dangling her stiff legs over the side. Ice looked incredulously at her as she stood up and took a wobbly step towards him. A shiver ran down her spine when her bare feet touched the cold marble floor. She walked hesitantly towards ice, and finally sat down in front of the water bottle, mirroring his position.

As if she was mute, Christabelle took the bottle and twisted the cap open and set it on the floor. She lifted the bottle mouth to her lips, and gulped down half the bottle of water in the blink of an eye.

"well... you really are that fuckin dehydrated, eh?" Ice asked, forced humor in his words.
Christabelle nodded, setting the bottle back down. "Sorry. For the yelling, I mean. sorry."
"It's... fine, I guess. I'm sorry, too," She retorted flatly, not really meaning what she said.
"The King says you're to meet him for dinner."
"wh... what?" stuttered the girl. Dinner had come to be a foreign concept to her.
"d-dinner?"
"Yeah," Ice replied coolly. He saw her anxiety, and it bred his own. "Me, silver, and a few other guys will be there. His right-hand men."
"You're his right-hand man?" She asked timidly. Ice chuckled, raking his fingers through his hair again. His crystal blue eyes sought contact from Christabelle's dark orbs of bistre brown, but she kept her eyes trained at the floor.
"No," he answered. "Silver and I are his chasers, bouncers--his hitmen."
"What does he seek from me?" Christabelle asked. Her heart began to pound faster.
"Your murderous skill," The man replied, scrutinizing the girl in front of him with interest. At the sight of her eyes widening, he chuckled again. "Maybe. I don't know. The King is quite unpredictable."
"Unpredictable he is," A low, husky voice boomed from the doorway and startled the two. An extremely muscular man with brown military-cut hair stood at the open doorway. Ice turned to face him with a snide sneer on his face. "which is why you shouldn't be wasting too much time making friends with our little knife girl."
"Aren't you supposed to be running an errand, brass?" Ice asked.
"Dinner in thirty minutes. Kiara put clothes under the bed," Brass stated, turning his back. He stopped briefly, glancing over his shoulder before continuing out and closing the door behind him.

Silence fell over them once more, enveloping the senses like a velvet blanket. Ice eyed the girl cautiously, as if she were some kind of wild animal that might lash out at him at any given second.

She sighed and brushed a strand of hair back behind her ear, trying to ignore the trembling of her fingers.
"Don't look at me like that, Ice, I'm fully aware of my lack of choice here," She stated coldly, not bothering to look him in the eye. Satisfaction and amusement spun into shining threads in his mind, and sewed a smirk onto his thin lips.
"The bathroom's right there," He said, pointing to a door at the corner of the room
that Christabelle had failed to notice.
"Great, now get the fuck out of here so I could get cleaned up."
"Twenty minutes, Poe," ice chuckled. "I'll walk in here at the twenty-minute mark and go through etiquette with you, so you better be dressed by then," he continued, laughing and standing up.
Christabelle didn't move until the door closed behind Ice as well, and solitude clasped her chest so tightly she thought she would never see another human face again.