Who Do You Think You Are?

I am linking up with Write on Edge for the Red Writing Hood prompt this week. The focus is on conflict, inspired by this quote:

"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence."
Mahatma Gandhi (1869 – 1948)

I am bravely sharing an excerpt from my novel. You can read more about Kate and Marisa here, here, and here.

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Kate locked eyes with one of the men on the couch. Sure enough, he motioned for her to come over. Coke was lined up on the table. She kneeled at the coffee table, took a straw, and snorted a line. She sat back to drink, to wash the drug down her throat. She lit a cigarette because it was a drug’s best companion. Now she just wanted to get the hell out of there.

She did not know these men. She did not need to know these men. She hated them. They were friends of her boss. Her boss, who was in the other room with Marisa. Her boss was a disgusting man. He was short and fat with thinning dark hair. He was mean. The only time she ever heard him was when he was yelling at the girls. “Get on the floor, you lazy bitches! Let’s go!” Otherwise, he stood in the corners and watched. Sometimes he spoke with other men.

Kate and Marisa did their motherfucking jobs and hoped to have no interaction with the man.

Which was why Kate could not understand, even through the haze of her thoughts, why Marisa went to a bedroom with him. Probably, fear took Marisa to the bedroom with him, and fear kept Kate right where she was.

She dared not ask any questions and instead watched the smoke swirl through the fluorescent lights of the kitchen. The music was loud, drowning out the conversation of the men around her. She never seemed privy to the conversation of men around her.

Kate started to hear sounds coming from the hallway. Her body instantly perked up, on alert.

“Get the fuck out of here! You fucking slut!”

Kate licked her finger, reached over and dipped into the coke on the table, sucked it off and rubbed her gums in a split second. She jumped up, ready to go. Before she could see anything, she heard scuffling in the hallway, then a thud. Kate rushed over and saw Marisa face down on the carpet, but she was quickly getting herself up.

Without saying a word, Marisa looked up at Kate with a face that said, Let’s get the fuck out of here. Her lip was bleeding.

Down the hall, Kate could only see the shadow of him. “You’re fucking fired! I never want to see your skinny ass again!”

Without ever saying a word, they both walked out of the house. On their way through the kitchen, Marisa grabbed the half empty bottle of whiskey.

Kate never asked what happened in that bedroom. From the look on Marisa’s face, the topic was off-limits. She only drove them away as swiftly as she could, away from a situation that could have been a whole hell of a lot worse.

(I deeply apologize for going over the word limit for the prompt this week.)