At first Flower thinks it's one of the dead bodies reaching out to her so she screams loud and high. Ear bleedingly high. As her eyes adjust, she realizes the man grabbing her is Aaron and she is back under the desk. The familiar voice of Brayan comes rushing and sounds worried.
"Is there anything wrong Sir? The whole building heard the scream."
"No, I am just talking to a girl, and she wanted to show me how loud she can scream." Aaron says. Then Nathan adds, "Pretty loud I suppose." Before Flower could call out for help Aaron covers her mouth. The girl panics but needs the time to think. Aaron is not kind, does not laugh, harsh, dangerous. Nathan: also dangerous, funny, scary, sarcastic. Flower forces her heart rate down by taking deep breaths. If she wants to escape, she has to know who her best chance at it is. Brayan: Very kind, would help me but works for Aaron. Maybe I could convince him to not tell his boss. After not finding anyone that would help her, Flower officially starts to panic with nothing to hold her back. She does the first thing that comes to mind and bites Aaron's hand. The man actually takes the time to look at her face and laugh. His laugh isn't the sweetly dangerous Nathan laugh. It is just a plain deep scary laugh.
"Little kid, you surprise me every time I meet you." That makes the girl freeze. He's met her before. She's met him before. Blurry images crawl at the back of her mind, but she still doesn't know when she met him. Her mind begins to spin, and she starts thrashing against Aaron. She kicks, bites, grabs anything she can, but still of no use. He has a firm grip on her.
"Kid" the man tries to get her attention.
"KID!" he shouts. Flower stops and stares at the man. Is this how she is going to die? Tears stain her eyes, and she begins to cry. Her sounds are muffled and Brayan has left, closing the door behind him. They are going to kill me. What did I do to you? I just want to live. Please! Flower begs in her mind but her mouth is still covered. When Nathan sees her cry, he raises an eyebrow then sighs.
"Let her talk and explain herself" Aaron doesn't seem to like that idea, but he slowly takes her hand off her mouth. Before he completely takes it off, he puts it back on quickly hurting Flower. He comes close to her face and his eyes alone scream for her to run.
"If you even try to scream," Aaron says, letting the treat hang in the air. The scared girl shakes her head quickly telling them that she wouldn't dare. He takes his hand off but both men still corner her under the desk, so she can't go anywhere.
"Please don't kill me." Flower says immediately with desperation leaking in her every word.
"If you tell us what you're doing here, we might let you live." Aaron's voice is deep and commanding.
"I-I was just….I" The girl trembles in fear and takes one deep breath. This does little to calm her down so she turns back to an old habit her parents always told her not to do.
"If you are nervous or scared, take deep breaths, don't hold your breath in. It doesn't help." The memory is so crisp in her mind that she almost expects to see her parents in front of her when she opens her eyes. But for some reason this habit has always helped her calm down when nothing else could. She takes a deep breath and traps it in, letting her cheeks blow up and hold the air while her eyes are still closed. The men look confusingly at each other. After 20 seconds, Flower opens her eyes and tries to gather up any courage that might have been hiding in her all these years, but she remains to be herself. Courage less.
"I am part of th-the group of girls who came here to see this place." This situation strikes Flower to be terribly embarrassing. Everyone will know she came here and got caught. Her class, Ray, Macy, Cidny, Reina, and Adam the tour guide. Maybe even Ky and Brayan.
"I was just bored and wanted to do something interesting. I didn't realize where I was going." Flower decides to pretend that she is partly clueless for a better chance of escape. Nathan comes close to her and smiles this crooked smile.
"You know we know you kid." the girl keeps all emotion out of her face and stays on act.
"I don't know you." The shorter the answer, the better.
"Ok, let us introduce ourselves, although I think you know our names." Nathan smiles but Flower keeps her face still.
"My name is Nathan. I am a worker here and this is Aaron, one of the judges of the business center."
"You're not a worker." Flower says without even thinking it through. The girl widens her eyes and starts to move again when the men close in on her. For some reason, Aaron is smiling.
"Don't try to run away again. You're not going to get far." The girl slowly sits back down.
"Good." Aaron says, still smiling creepily.
"Good..w-what" Flower says stuttering. She doesn't know her boundaries with them yet and wants to know how far they will let her go.
"I thought you were a fool, like the rest of your little friends."
"Who?"
"Your little friends. You know Sally and Rory whatever her name is"
"You mean…Sally Ary and Aly"
"Yeah those idiots"
"Why are you talking about them like that? They are just girls who have nothing to do with their parents or what they do. They haven't been taught better."
It could have sounded like a grand speech but Flower is stuttering and flinching all the way through with her shaky voice. Both men smile and Flower establishes that none of their smiles are happy but instead are sarcastic or scary. Nathan looks at her and says,
"This is amazing. I'll go call the rest that are still here to listen to what Preacher Flower has to say."
"Who exactly is "the rest" and why are you telling them? Are they guards that'll imprison me?" Her voice breaks and betrays Flower. Nathan and Aaron both seem to be sizing her up and trying to understand her. But Nathan snaps out of it and leaves the room making sure to close the door. Now, Aaron and Flower are alone which seems worse than being alone with Nathan. But if she is going to be terrified, she is going to get information out of it. Or she could just be terrified alone. It's not like she can force the man to answer her questions if he refuses. She is just hoping he doesn't mind shedding some light on this situation. Specifically, how they supposedly know each other because she couldn't really explain to him what she is doing here.