house wasn’t quiet. There were sounds from the office.Lila couldn’t sleep.She sat on the stairs and listened.She heard the shuffling of random, aimless, rambling steps of bare feet on carpet. She heard the exhausted and frequent sighs. And she heard little bangs every now and again, followed by muffled curses.It was two in the morning and Lila couldn’t sleep.She gave a strangled scream before shouting down the stairs,” Kai! Get the fuck up here!”An owl hooted outside.“And shut the fuck up you useless bird before I put you in a cage inside the café!”Standing up and marching to the kitchen, Lila rolled up her sleeves and opened the fridge, looking over what was there before nodding to herself.Kai appeared in the doorway, rubbing his eyes and wearing a t shirt and a pair of shorts,” You can’t sleep too.”“No, I can’t sleep too. I

“I’ve been compiling this folder for a while. It’s got pictures of bruises and marks, from when I could take them with my phone, and I’ve marked the date and time that the pictures were taken on the back. There are also transcripts with conversations between us and there’s also a CD with all the tapes and digital images, if my physical record keeping isn’t enough,” Lila outlined, pushing the folder towards the tablet lady.She sat back in her chair afterwards, crossing her legs and placing her hands over her knees, forcing her face to go completely blank.For the first time ever, Lila got her reaction from the lady. She paused and put down her device, laying it down just so that Lila could get herself a view of what was on the screen.It was as dull and straightforward as Lila expected, with blunt questions and equally blunt answers matching them without a single word or letter out of place.Lila supposed that aft

“Are you OK? You look tired,” Emmet asked her,” The smallest, plainest mocha you’ve got, and the smallest, plainest expresso.”“I know. I’ve been negotiating. Thank you for the comment. Buy me makeup I won’t use,” Lila hissed at him,” Of course sir, please wait a moment while your drink is prepared. Would you like to purchase any baked goods?”“Negotiating what exactly? Does it have something to do with the machine that you said that you’d get us?” Emmet pushed,” Yes. I’d like to have two of cupcakes there.”“Yes. It’s exactly that, though the date is now being pushed another week later, about a week anyway, but not two weeks,” Lila answered,” Of course. Are you eating inside, or would you like to take out?”“Alright then. Make sure that you’re safe the entire time. Are you going to be safe? How are you managing t

Gretel and Silver had their fun as he continued to teach her how the interface worked and how he had managed to figure out that the system was an older model from the lack of integration between the screen and the touch pad, and explaining how easily it would potentially be to do so once the technology, as displayed in this device, had been demonstrated and established to work in a functional product. "We were working on something like this as well, back in the workshops back home for the company that I was in the research and development department for. We were trying to get our motion sensors to be as small as possible for more commercial and personal use of technology that we could sell to the public and those who couldn't afford the contact computers. We had no idea on how their tech worked, because of trade and company secrets and all, but we managed to piece together a few things by looking at the patents and when we bought a few and m

“One! Two! Three! Four! Five!Now again!One! Two! Three! Four! Five!Now keep on going!”Lila landed each punch, timing her breaths to the count as she moved her fists, dodging underneath the swing that came towards her head, before blocking the second hit that came to her and moving along with the force of the fist that hit her arm.The swinging punching bag forced distance between Lila and Tweedle Dum, and she stepped back to where she was stood before, within the path of the moving bad, to put more distance between him and her.“One! Two! Three! Four! Five!One! Two! Three! Four! Five!”Lila punched the bag once more, landing all of her hits.“Okay, time for a break,” Tweedle Dum announced, grabbing the punching bag and pulling it back to him as Lila moved away from the centre of the room, sitting down on one of the rickety plastic chairs at the side of the room.She took of