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Annoyed eyes.
Eyes seeking vengeance of a kind.
Perhaps Laura is distracted, or maybe she simply needs to pay more attention to her surroundings, having slipped out of the habits of her military training, softened by a civilian life.
Whatever the reason, she is caught unawares by a streak of white which rockets toward her from above. A snowball catches her square in the chest, powder evaporating in an icy spray.
Storm pops up from an outcropping above her, having clearly laid in wait. She is wearing white snow gear and a white hat pulled down low almost all the way to her eyes. Camouflage, in other words.
Stunned, Laura says nothing. That is not a problem, because Storm has plenty to say for herself.
“Stop trying to get me in trouble!” Storm shouts from her high ground. “I heard what you were saying to Strict! I heard you trying to get me spanked! Fuck you!”
Laura glares up at Storm, her eyes blue and furious against the snowy background.
“You will pay for this,” she declares. “When I get hold of you…”
“You’re not getting me, Frau Snitch,” Storm shouts, whipping another snowball at Laura. She clearly has several already made for this occasion. It’s an ambush, though a relatively benign one. “Stop trying to get me in trouble! What did I ever do to you? What’s your problem?”
“My problem is that you’re undisciplined — even with discipline — because you’re spoiled.”
“Yeah? How am I spoiled? Who do you think spoiled me? You think Jane spoils me!? Did you see what she did with that fucking birch thing!?”
Another snowball is whipped from the outcrop. This one just barely misses Laura. Maybe that’s an accident. Maybe it isn’t.
Laura doesn’t answer that question, because Laura is clearly trying to work out how to get up to Storm as quickly as possible.
But Storm has spent much of her life on hilly ground with a ferocious younger brother, and she knows how to pick a spot to defend. There’s a steep drop in front of her, not easily climbed, and then to the side there is a more shallow incline, but to run around to it, Laura will expend a great deal of effort and probably still not catch her tormentor.
“I’m not spoiled!” Storm shouts, throwing another snowball. Laura sidesteps it.
“Come down from there, or I promise you will regret this.”
“I won’t! Because you’ll have to tell Miss Strict that I threw a snowball at you, and that won’t sound that bad and you’ll seem like a grumpy mean lady, because that’s what you are!”
* * *
Laura hesitates, and Storm knows that her plan is working. Lines have to be drawn with these people. She doesn’t mind Laura, but she cannot stand the way the woman seems to be trying to get her in more trouble, when in truth she is already in more trouble than she’s ever been in, in her entire life.
“Stop trying to turn the one person who is nice to me against me,” she adds. “Or next time, it won’t be snowballs.”
That’s a threat that cannot be allowed to stand. Laura bounds up the side of the hillock, but Storm anticipated that, of course. She does not intend to be caught out here.
She has a plastic sled with her and she runs like hell before diving onto it and skimming down the mountain toward the chateau at a speed nobody could hope to follow on foot, putting real distance between her and the angry soldier.
* * *
Jane is relaxing in her little mountain cottage when a sharp rapping at the door rouses her from her book.
“Come in!” She calls out.
Laura walks in the door. She looks pissed. That is the first thing Jane notices. She’s never seen Laura look actually properly angry before, but she certainly looks absolutely furious now.
She is also soaked and bloodied just beneath her nose. She has tried to wipe it away, but something has clearly caused a recent nosebleed.
Jane is on her feet in an instant.
“What happened to you?”
