The Story of Blood and Roses

The sandwiches were made in twenty minutes. It turned out that Anthony was really picky about how he took his meals. He cut out the hard sides at the very beginning, then put peanut butter on each of the loaves. He went on to put a layer of jam on both and then went on to put another layer of peanut butter. Okay, so, he wasn't so picky with that, but he took the sandwich, cut it into four smaller squares and then put tomato ketchup on it.

Yes, he did that.

I stared at him the whole time he went on with the process of making the hideous thing. He didn't spare me a glance, of course. And then he brought out a glass of milk, too, and then ate those things with milk. My hands remained frozen over the sandwiches I was making, the knife pointed towards Anthony the whole time he went about cooking. A shiver of disgust ran down my spine, which was the first time he noticed me.

"What? Are you going to kill me for eating food I like?" He glanced down at the butter knife pointed his way and then back at my face.

"Yes, I should try to saw your throat off painfully with a butter knife for thinking of consuming that weird thing." My voice was filled with the disgust I felt, and my eyes zoomed into his hand where one small, bitten piece of the peanut butter jelly ketchup sandwich was held.

"Don't hate my food." He flung the remnant into his mouth and happily chewed at it. I looked away with an exasperated sigh and went back to making snacks for the others. The sandwiches were coming out nicely and I imagined that there would be at least six or seven people who would attend the meeting.

I was done by the time when I heard the hollering from the Hall. I could make out the voices of Sean and Ethan, but there were other voices that I couldn't figure out. I assumed there were about three other people in the room.

I heard Anthony mussing something about me being the "the woman of the house."

I glared at him and commented, "Don't snatch the title from Lady Cienna. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." He, of course, let out a snort at the comment and might have rolled his eyes.

It turned out that he thought of the ex-prostitute as nothing but an employee. Well, no one would be hearing wedding bells in the Murray mansion in the near future, I presumed.

Should I feel sorry for Cienna, or not?

Not.

"Woman, bring us our food!" I heard Ethan shout from the other room. I shoved the plates towards Anthony and walked out of the kitchen with only my own share of food in hand. "I hope we won't die. She admitted she can't cook the other day. I don't want to test her skills," he said with a tinge of fear. I presumed that food was his kryptonite. One could probably torture him with bad food and I could understand where he came from after being held prisoner in a terrorist camp.

"Get your own fucking food, you big oaf," I told him as I passed him and plopped down on a sofa that was shoved against the wall. He laughed it off and then swore. I looked up to see that they were all staring at Anthony who was mostly trying to gracefully place the food on the floor so that everyone could get their hands on it.

"Damn me, if this man hasn't been domesticated, at last." I heard the snickering accompanied by the telltale roll of Anthony's eyes.

"Thank you for your concern, but you may all sit down and shove your faces into the plate." The jocular nature of the meeting made it seem like a slumber party and not a strategic meeting. After the food had been literally shoved into their faces, they put their game faces on and stared at the neatly piled papers on the floor. I slid to the floor and found myself beside them trying to figure out the meaning of all that was put in front of me.

I could see the map that Anthony had been working on the day he dismissed me, lying in the center of the empty space. The others, too, had their eyes on the map. They, like me, were trying to figure out the significance of the map. I never really got to ask why he was plotting routes and marking with the red marker pen on that map a few days ago. The lines were radiating from one point in general, but none of us really found out where it was from. I looked up at Anthony and gave him a questioning look. He nodded and then leaned into the tight circle that had formed around the map. All the other paper was pushed behind us and all of us spread across the corners to inspect the details.

"This map is that of Syracuse. The red dots across it are locations of known storehouses. As you can see, there aren't many. There are about fifteen or so and the tight number leaves us with few possibilities." Everyone nodded in understanding and then went back to looking at the map. "The ones that have a larger circle encircling the smaller one are those that have higher possibilities of being Luke's. About three of them are currently occupied by people we are both trading with, which make them prime targets for having stored the stolen shipments even if it is without their knowledge." Spotting them, we gestured him to continue. "Now, we have a problem. We cannot for sure know that these or one of these has the cargo." He scratched his jaw in concentration as we went back to thinking ourselves.

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