Something I wrote on the spur of the moment. Read and review, please, and let me know what can be changed.
Disclaimer: This story is copyrighted to yours truly.
---
Nobody had tried to carve their initials into my face with a broken wine bottle for a while now. It should have been a tip-off.
Olivia was waiting for me as I stepped into the house, lounging languidly in a kitchen chair. She was eying a bottle of something amber-colored set on the table, frowning at it in concentration. The four empties on the counter behind her were mute testament to how she'd been spending her time.
Olivia was having one of her off days.
Oh.
Super.
The door clicked shut behind me.
My hand curled into a fist on pure reflex, and I willed it to relax a little. No point in getting all worked up just yet, though I half-expected the outcome to be the same either way. Only two stages after that: waking up six hours later with my head plastered to the floor, and picking my teeth out of the drywall.
Damn, I'm gloomy.
“Olivia?” I said. No answer.
I took the seat across from her. “Olivia...what's going on with you?”
Olivia looked up from the bottle, a distant look in her eyes. She blinked and a small, oddly chilling smile spread across her lips.
“I've thought of a wonderful present for you,” she said quietly.
A familiar oily tar-taste started creeping up my throat. “What?”
She took the bottle by the neck and held it up, showing me the label.
“Oh, goody,” I said. “A bottle of bourbon. Just what I've always wanted.”
Then, in a blur, Olivia smashed it against the table's edge, and I barely got my arm up in time to avoid being sprayed by a rain of glass and amber fluid.
Glittering glass shards lay scattered on the table in a puddle of foul-smelling spirit. Olivia's grip tightened on what was left of the bottle.
“Oh, goody,” I said. “A cat-thrasher. Just what I've always—”
I'm getting a little too used to this. I managed to roll out of the chair just before Olivia's arm blurred and she catapulted the bottle at my face. The thing broke noisily against a wall, and I was back on my feet before the glass stopped tinkling—
—to narrowly avoid getting my legs kicked out from under me. My ankle exploded into white-hot pain, but by Thunder, I kept my feet under me long enough to land a fair punch to her stomach—
—which didn't even make her blink. My foot lashed out at her hip, but she caught it with one hand and used her freaking elbow to hit me in the side of my knee.
Silver pain shot up and down my entire leg, and I was distantly aware of screaming something vaguely profane as I collapsed. I landed on my shoulder and rolled on my side, shouting a wordless invective.
Holy crap.
Olivia's sandals crunched on broken glass for a second before she stopped bare inches from my face. I had to twist my head at an odd angle to look her in the eyes.
“You're improving,” she said. This time the smile had considerably more warmth to it. “You've gone from 'abysmal' to 'merely horrible'.” She offered me a hand. “I hope I didn't kill your leg.”
“Pain's abstract,” I answered. “I focus on definable things, like not getting the everloving snot beaten out of me.”
“Good boy.”
I lifted my hand and she pulled me to my feet. I hobbled back over to my chair and sat down, clutching my leg and wishing fates upon Olivia that no man had ever wished before. “In all seriousness, though, a little forewarning would be nice next time.”
Olivia snorted. “What, smashing a bottle and throwing it at your nose doesn't send a clear enough message?”
“Oh, no, the message was clear,” I said as I bent my knee experimentally. “I just didn't figure that it'd nearly embed itself in my skull.” I winced in a vain attempt to stop the throbbing in my knee. “I'll look out for that next time.”
