NaNoWriMo + 
= #freewritemadness.
Me and 16 others are gathering at the 
Today’s prompts are: a shoe (for the weekend single prompt option you get to "choose" from the list of previous prompts, so I chose the prompt from day 26 - which is the day before I started doing the daily freewrites - https://steemit.com/freewrite/@mariannewest/day-26-5-minute-freewrite-prompt-a-shoe) and a Photo by Taras Chernus on Unsplash
As usual I started with the freewrite prompt and used themostdangerouswritingapp.com to write the first five minutes:
…
The many torments of Tiny Earl - Chapter Four
Clare had not been in a Rolls Royce before. She had always thought them vulgar cars, big boxes on wheels that rich people with no taste used to show off how much money and how little style they had.
Her few minutes in the car with Tiny had not altered that opinion.
Tiny sat next to her, clearly uncomfortable with sharing the back seat with the hired help, but at least he was not trying to grope her or flirt with her, unlike that politician she had been allocated to on her last assignment.
Clare struggled to believe Tiny had swallowed Glenn's "deputy" line. The shop had told her that Tiny had no memory for faces, at least of people of little significance to him: the little people, the staff. But, even so, she had thought he might have questioned the fact he had never seen her before.
Apparently not.
She shifted, uncomfortable in the seat next to this man. Her left shoe had been irritating her all day. It had rubbed a blister onto her little toe. Hardly a debilitating injury. But it was annoying, nonetheless.
Of course, it wasn’t really her shoe that was bothering her. This man - “Tiny” Augustine Flaherty Montgomery-Smyth - oozed an aura of wrongness. Perhaps “oozed” was the wrong word. To Clare, it didn’t feel like it was seeping, gradually, like damp through an old wall. It felt as if the man was a dam holding back an entire lake of wrongness. A dam with a hole in it. And all the wrongness, building up on the other side, had found the weakness in the dam. It was pouring through the hole, eroding the very fabric of the dam walls as it did so, making the hole bigger every minute, every second, until the wall - the dam, the man - was in danger of collapsing, and the whole world would be flooded.
She shivered, trying to shake off the feeling. Tiny looked at her, one eyebrow raised. It was warm in the car, so he would no doubt think it odd if she seemed cold. She wondered if he even knew how dangerous he was. She smiled, her best I’m-in-charge-everything-is-fine-sir smile, and checked her communication device again. The shop had no further instructions for her. But she didn’t expect any. Her mission was crystal clear.
Clare had very much been stuck in the preparation stage for this assignment when the call from her supervisor came.
“It is happening. Glenn has confirmed it. You need to get to the house, now. I don’t care how unprepared you feel you are, Clare. This is it. Go.”
Clare had met Glenn, once - although he probably wouldn’t remember - when she was undergoing selection training. At that point, of course, she didn’t know what the shop was. Hell, she didn’t even know she was undergoing selection training. She thought she was being paid to take part in a psychological experiment.
Hard to imagine, now, sitting here in her uncomfortable - but very expensive - shoes, dressed in these clothes, in this car, next to Tiny Montgomery-Smyth, no less, that not so long ago she had been so desperate for money. Knowing what she knew about the shop Clare often wondered what hand they had had in shaping her poverty and her desperation. How long had they been training her secretly. Had they found her in high school? Before then?
She hadn’t met many others who worked at the shop but those she had were damaged too, in different ways to her, of course. It was as if they had been selected from a second hand store, the marks, scratches and dents they had collected on their journey through life, made them unique. Rather than the damage making them useless, detracting from their value, it made them even more special.
Had the shop been passive observers as she was battered by her life experiences? Or had they engineered some of it, or all of it? She could easily imagine it had part of their design that she would sink so low. She didn’t resent it. Not now, at least. She knew why they did what they did, and whilst some of the methods might be considered cruel - to those who had the luxury of not knowing why they did what they did - she knew they were necessary.
It was a long time after she had first met Glenn that she learned who he was, what he had done and what it was that made him so valuable to the shop. But, at that first meeting, she had a feeling about him. At that time her talents had been unrefined, untrained. But the person interviewing her - who at the time Clare had believed was a psychology student, but later - noticed it.
“Tell me about that man.”
“What man.”
“You know what man. The man who just brought you coffee. You felt something didn’t you. Saw something, even. Tell me about it.”
But at the time, Clare couldn’t put into words the feelings, the shapes and colours and even the smells, tastes and sounds she had flash into her mind when the man’s hand - Glenn’s hand - had brushed against hers as he placed her coffee next to her.
The device in her hand vibrated gently, and she glanced at it, as casually as possible. They were nearing the pickup. Glenn had spoken with Tiny’s wife. She was cooperating, but expect a delay. Clare would need to manage Tiny’s irritation at being kept waiting.
Clare smiled. That was exactly what she would expect from Mrs Montgomery-Smyth. Clare was looking forward to meeting Eleanor. From what she had read - the extensive research the shop had provided her with - she too carried her own dents, marks and scratches, from her life experiences. She wondered how involved the shop had been in shaping her damage. Was Eleanor part of their plan too?
Probably not. As much as Clare would like to believe the shop was in control of everything - that they had a perfect plan for the end game - she knew this was wishful thinking. That is why she had been trained in the way she had. To be able to adapt to the unexpected. To think on her feet. To take charge when necessary.
She felt Tiny’s agitation increase even before they pulled up in front of the apartment building. Just being that little bit closer to his estranged wife had ratcheted up the irritation levels. He looked at his watch.
“She’ll be late, of course,” he said, the first words he’d uttered since he got into the car. “She does it deliberately. She knows I can’t abide lateness.”
“I am sure Glenn has emphasised the importance of getting to the safe house, sir,” Clare said, trying not to smile. “I am sure she knows her safety is as much at stake as your own.”
Tiny sniffed.
“You haven’t met her, have you?” he looked at Clare. “Come to think of it, I really am not sure if I met you before.”
Clare smiled. “A couple of weeks ago, sir. During my orientation. We met in the hall. Glenn introduced us. But, you were very busy and we didn’t speak for long.”
“Hmmmm,” Tiny said, looking at his watch again. “I have been very busy. And somewhat distracted by business, of late.” He looked Clare in the eye. “I have a terrible memory for faces,” he said. “Sorry, if I didn’t remember yours.”
He didn’t sound sorry, Clare thought. And she wondered why he felt the need to say it at all. That wasn’t like the Tiny she had read about.
“I need a drink,” Tiny said. “Can I have a drink?” It wasn’t really a question, Clare realised - even as she nodded - and certainly not one aimed at her. Tiny pressed a button and a small door clicked open revealing a compartment with a crystal decanter containing, what Clare assumed was whisky - Tiny’s beverage of choice. There was only one glass and TIny did not offer Clare a drink. He poured a generous measure for himself and added a single ice cube.
Aside from the crack and clink of the ice cube as it gradually melted in his glass, they sat in silence. The aroma of whiskey filled the small space, and it reminded Clare of her father. She shifted in her seat again, her training helping her to push that memory into a cupboard in her brain. She would have time to examine that memory later, if she wanted to torture herself. Now, was not the time. Clare could feel a change in Tiny’s aura as the alcohol entered his bloodstream. She noted - not unhappily - that it had a very different effect on Tiny than whisky had on her father.
The apartment door opened and Clare noticed that Tiny made a conscious effort not to look up, or to look at his watch - even though she felt he really did want to. He stared into his glass, gently swirling the liquid, seemingly watching the ice cube gently melt.
Clare shifted her attention to the woman who was strolling towards them, apparently without a care in the world. She certainly didn’t look like a woman who had been contacted by her estranged husband’s chief of security and told she needed to pack an overnight bag and leave immediately. Clare reached out to the woman as she approached the car. Eleanor was delicate, Clare realised. She was worried about things, unrelated - at least in her mind - to the call from Glenn, and the need to leave for a safe house. Eleanor looked up, making eye contact with Clare. She can feel me, Clare thought, pulling back. Perhaps not so much delicate, more sensitive.
Clare opened the door and stepped out of the Rolls.
“Mrs Montgomery-Smyth,” she said, holding out her hand. “My name is Clare. I am Glenn’s deputy. Pleased to meet you.” As Eleanor took her hand, Clare was careful to shield herself as much as she could. But despite that she felt a tingle at the back of her neck, and a buzzing in her ears as energy was exchanged.
“Hello Clare,” Eleanor said. “Pleased to meet you. Please, call me Eleanor. I really don’t need any further reminders I am married to that,” she pointed at Tiny, who - still staring into his glass - hadn’t acknowledged his wife was standing beside the car. “Please,” she said again. “Do get in first. I would rather sit next to the window,” she gestured at the glass in Tiny’s hand. “I think I will be in need of fresh air.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Clare saw something move. In the shadows, by the trees. As she took Eleanor’s small bag and climbed back into the car, she reached out. She touched the shadows and although Clare wasn’t sure what it was there was a flicker of acknowledgement, of recognition of what she was from the other. She felt it take hold of her reach and for a moment she thought she was going to lose control, that it was going to grab her, climb inside her mind, hitch a ride. She felt something else, then - although she wasn’t sure what it was, or where it came from - and the thing in the shadows pushed her reach away, recoiling from it, running from it. She reached out again, but the thing in the shadows was gone.
Tiny did not look up as his wife stepped into the car. Clare waited, still shaken from her encounter with whatever that thing was, until Eleanor was sitting next to her, her seatbelt fastened before she gave the signal to Tom, the driver, to continue, and began tapping a report on the thing in the shadows to send to the shop.
“Well isn’t this nice,” Eleanor said, pushing herself back into the leather seat. “Just like old times, eh, Augustine?”
Tiny didn’t answer. But Clare had the feeling she wasn’t expecting him to.
“You know, dear,” Eleanor said, turning to her and putting her hand over the Clare’s, stopping her from tapping out the message to the shop. “You really should put a plaster on that toe of yours. That shoe is causing quite a nasty blister.”
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