Lupo

Chapter Nine: The Great Escape

Sorry this chapter is so crappy. This is defo not how i want it to be at all - but for some reason I had really bad writer's block with this one. I figured it best just to get it finished and out the way and hopefully come back to it at some point and edit.

Please vote and comment! :)

Picture of Artia (Emma Watson)

COPYRIGHT (C) SJCLewis2016

Darcie couldn't remember how many drinks she'd had the night before, but she had a horrible feeling that she'd spent far much more on alcohol than she should have done. The realisation that, as a result, she would probably be eating baked beans for the rest of the summer, came to her as she sat in the car with her head in her hands, listening to Bash chatting merrily away on his phone in - what she assumed to be - Russian. 

After only a few more minutes of driving they had reached a rustic-looking village, with quaint little stone buildings, and which was run through with old, cobbled streets. Bash had parked the car up at the side of a road, outside a fancy looking delicatessen and directly opposite an artisan florist. It was the examination of the latter which eventually pulled Darcie back from dwelling upon her depressive money woes.

Every window, every possible surface, was strikingly over-crowded with hundreds upon hundreds of brilliantly-coloured blooms. It was almost as if the front wall of the little shop itself was made entirely of petals, wound together with ribbons of lace and reams of lush greenery. Tin buckets of fresh lilies, tulips, roses, and countless other buds, seemed to spill out of the door and onto the street, covering the pavement and almost encroaching upon the bench which sat a little to the right of the building.

Darcie had never seen anything like it.

The tone and pace of Bash's conversation suddenly changed, and Darcie rather thought that he was trying to end the call. The back of her neck prickled, and she sensed that he had turned his eyes on her again, calculating and oppressive. Shifting uncomfortably in her seat, she refused to look round at him. No amount of pretty flowers could make her forget about what he really was.

"Khorosho, ya budu... Otlichno." Bash pronounced the words with an air of ease and confidence. "YA budu govorit' s vami pozzhe. Spasibo, Nik."

He hung up and Darcie scowled down at her ragged fingernails, half irritated, half impressed.

So he spoke Italian, English and Russian. What a guy.

As she watched a cluster of blushing peonies rustle gently in a subtle breeze, the sense of hopelessness, which had first come over her at Nikolai's house, rose over her again with renewed impression. But what could she do? She had no way of getting back to Oxford without Bash or Tito's help. She was trapped. Turning away from the window with a bitter sigh, she cursed violently. 

Bash, who was stowing his phone away in his pocket again, looked around at her with a frown.

"You ok?"

"Not really, no." Darcie replied waspishly, running her hands over her face in a gesture of tiredness. "Can we get on, please? I'm really quite hungover."

Bash gave her a once over. 

"I just need to pop in to Alex's and get some food. I won't be long. Then we can go home and you can eat or sleep or whatever you want."

Darcie scoffed. "Whatever."

Bash rolled his eyes and sighed before grabbing the keys from the ignition and stepping out of the car.