Hard to Hate You // Michael Langdon

Part III - Interview

Ms. Venable is up to something.

I quickly turn away from the scene before me, which is Ms. Venable and Ms. Mead with a bunch of snakes in the decontamination room, and I silently make my way down the hallway.  

Why the hell are they messing with those snakes, especially after having found out that they can't be killed?  Those snakes somehow didn't die after being turned into soup; if that's not a red flag, I don't know what is.

As I reach my bedroom, I suddenly stop.  What if this has to do with the upcoming Halloween ball?  I was wondering why the hell Ms. Venable would choose to celebrate Halloween over any other holiday, but maybe this is why; she's planning on doing something.

I slowly turn away from my bedroom and walk back down the hallway.  If I'm going to do something, now's the time; Ms. Venable is preoccupied, and Langdon is busy dealing with Gallant after Gallant very clearly killed his grandmother.

In fact, I haven't seen Langdon at all since his strange speech after his arrival, and since then he's been interviewing everyone but me.

I look both ways down the hallway before entering Venable's office.  She must have something in here, whether it's a weapon to protect herself with or information on what she's planning.

Although I'm on Venable's good side, I doubt she would hesitate to kill me if it got her one step closer to the Sanctuary.

I look around the room, then settle on searching her desk first.  I dig through all the drawers before finding a secret compartment at the bottom of a drawer.  I open it to find a gun. I pocket the gun and move on to the file cabinet on the opposite side of the room. As I'm digging through the cabinet, I hear a cane tapping.

"Oh shit," I mutter, turning around to see Ms. Venable standing in the doorway.

"What are you doing here?" she demands, an edge to her voice.

I quickly close the cabinet and stand to face her, coming up with a lie. "I just couldn't handle not knowing for any longer," I lie. "I need to know what's so special about my DNA and why the Cooperative chose to save me out of the 7 billion people that died in the blast. Nobody is answering my questions, so I took it into my own hands."

She glares at me as she walks towards me.  As soon as she reaches me, she slaps me across the face.  "You are foolish. I should have you executed for your stupidity-"

In my panic to distract her, I quickly grab her waist and pull her lips to mine. Her eyes widen at first, but then she accepts it and allows herself to relax slightly in my arms.

"What is this?" Langdon asks, entering the room.

Ms. Venable quickly releases me and turns to him, caught off guard. "I..." she trails off, not knowing what to say.  I have to stifle a chuckle as I wipe Venable's lipstick off the corner of my lips.

He smirks as he looks between us. "I hate to interrupt, Ms. Venable, but I would actually like to interview Ms. Callistra right now."

She stares, speechless, unsure of what to say. He sends her a stare that makes my blood run cold. She sighs and exits the room.

"Why do you want to interview me now? Haven't I already ruined my chances of getting into the Sanctuary?" I ask nonchalantly, making sure that my tone makes it clear that I'm not very concerned about it.

"No, surprisingly, you haven't," he smirks, walking towards me. He brings a hand to my face and I back away. "You don't trust me," he observes.

"Why should I?"