Assignment for my creative writing class: Show disgust.
The two goons frogmarched her into a palatial dining room. Seated at the head of the table was a corpulent bald man in a paisley dressing-gown. His hand paused with a forkful of ham halfway to his mouth. A couple of servants stood discreetly behind him.
“What is the meaning of this intrusion?” he asked.
The goon holding her left arm said, “We caught her in the library. She’d disabled two of the alarm systems, but not the new one.”
The fat man, who Claire could now positively identify as Kendall Harcombe, moved his fork the rest of the way to his mouth and he chewed in silence, staring at her.
“Was she armed?”
“No, sir.”
“A thief, then.” Harcombe’s eyes passed her over from head to foot. “And quite a comely one, too.” He ran his tongue across his upper teeth. “Well, my dear, it looks as though you’re in a spot of trouble. I’ve no doubt the police will be quite interested in having you.”
Claire refused to let her face react.
He chuckled. “Of course, I myself would be interested in having you. So I’ll make you an offer: spend an hour in bed with me and the police will have to catch you on their own.”
Forcing a smile, Claire said, “I’ve had worse offers. Throw in a bit of breakfast and you’ve got a deal.”
“Ha. I love a woman with moxie.” Harcombe motioned to his men, who brought her over to the table and sat her in a chair.
She surveyed the food on the table. “Any chance I could get a couple of those pancakes?”
At a nod from Harcombe, one of the servant got her a plate, placed two pancakes on it, and set it before her.
Claire picked up her fork, then said casually, “Oh, and some maple syrup?”
The servant brought over a pitcher of syrup and began to pour, murmuring, “Tell, me when, Miss.”
With her left hand, Claire struck the servant’s arm hard enough to splash maple syrup into the eyes of the goon on her right. Simultaneously, she jabbed her fork into the stomach of the goon on her right. As he began doubling over in pain, she spun from her chair and grabbed the gun from his hand then sent him crashing to the ground with a kick to the knee. One shot to the chest took out the other goon as he was still trying to wipe the syrup from his eyes. Messy, but he was still armed and she couldn’t afford to leave him standing.
“Nobody move!” she shouted. The servants had both ducked to the floor, and they remained huddled.
Harcombe had risen halfway out of his chair. He stopped. “My house is filled with guards. They’ll have–“
One shot to the head shut him up.
“I’ll take my chances with your guards.”
She took the time to spit on his body before she started running for the kitchen. According to the plans it was the shortest route out.
Note: In doing creative writing assignments, I sometimes reuse characters from previous assignments. Claire has appeared in several of them (although she appeared in some before she had a name.) This is the first one in which she killed anyone, though. I’ll probably post the others at some point.