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 as I immediately drop everything I was searching through. I shoot up into a standing position and turn around to see Ms. Venable standing in the doorway.

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

Luckily, although keeping a lookout isn't a natural skill set of mine, lying on the spot is. "I just couldn't handle not knowing any longer," I lie, putting on my best performance to make it seem like I'm truly desperate for knowledge. "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 matters into my own hands."

Her glare burns through me as she stalks toward me, her cane ominously tapping against the floor. As she arrives in front of me, she swiftly backhands me. My head whips to the side, my cheek stinging from the metal of her rings. "Ms. Callistra, I did not take you for a fool, but this is damn foolish of you. This offense is worthy of the worst punishment I have dealt anybody in this outpost-"

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's voice asks.

We immediately release each other and turn to face Langdon. He is standing in the doorway, an amused look on his face at having walked in on the scene before him. Ms. Venable is clearly more caught off guard than I am, as she stares at him in wide-eyed shock. "I... She..." She trails off, not knowing what to say.  

She turns to look at me, and I send her a sly smirk as I wipe her lipstick off the corner of my lips.

Langdon clears his throat, drawing both of our attentions back to him. He looks between us with a smirk - he clearly caught the look that we both shared. "I hate to interrupt, Ms. Venable, but I would actually like to interview Ms. Callistra right now."