MAIZE

That night she couldn't sleep.

Maize tossed and turned under the sheets of her bed. In her mind flashed images. Dreams. Memories. An unsettling merge of visions which kept her thrashing and unconsciously kicking out. A dagger—one that was kept under her pillow—whipped out as all of a sudden the hallucination crashed and Maize woke with a start. She held the six-inch blade in front of her face, shielding herself, protecting herself, defending herself. From something that was no longer there. Her pulse was racing.

Her widened eyes blinked once, eyes adjusting to the dark. It wasn't the darkness she had been remembering, it was simply, a room. Her room. That was right.

Her room.

Safehouse.

Mexico.

Far away.

She began to regain her senses, sitting up in her bed as she fought to calm the heavy breathing she had only just become aware of. She had lost control. She had panicked. But why? It had been a while since she had woken to dreams like that, so why now? Was it the apprehension building up—the feeling that soon, something was about to go very wrong? Was it just the job itself that had been getting to her without her realizing it?

Why now?

Maize needed a distraction. Her heart rate had still not yet calmed down to its initial pace, and her breathing was still shaky. Her fist clenched around the knife still in her hand, trembling now out of rage rather than fear. Rage because she had felt fear, that she had let it get to her. She told herself she would let it go, but the memories still refused to leave her alone even now. Even after all she had done to forget. She needed a distraction...

Maize silently slipped out of the messed up sheets, ignoring how crumpled and tossed the sheets looked only reminded her of what she had felt in her sleep. She pushed it down. Moving to her closet quickly and making heed to not make any noise that might alert the other two in the house, she grabbed a sweater and pulled it over her shoulders. At least the soft cotton did something to provide some semblance of easing comfort.

She left her room and headed silently down the hall. Maize always did know how to move with ease, controlling the amount of sound she made at any given time, so she didn't worry when she passed the doors of the other two. Neither needed to know she was up.

She went to the kitchen to do one of the only two things she knew how to do after experiencing one of these kinds of nightmares—and since she couldn't easily go out and beat the crap out of some criminal—she opted to make tea instead.

She prepared a kettle of water and grabbed a bag of herbal tea. Then she removed the small little container from her pocket that she had brought from her room and sat it next to the mug as she waited in silence.

She got caught up watching the water slowly boil that she had yet to hear the approaching noise until there was a step on the floorboards behind her. With her mind out of place, her body reacted on instinct. Without thinking Maize had whipped out her dagger again had it pointed at the oncomer, pulse jolting.

The sudden rush of adrenaline she had received in that instant stilled as she laid sight on who it was.

"Um...I surrender?"

Maize immediately dropped her blade arm and began cursing under her breath at the detective, who still held his hands laxly in the air as if unsure whether it was entirely safe to put them down or not.

"What are you doing awake?" she murmured to distract him as she hid the blade under her hood once again.

"I could ask you the same question," Alec returned smoothly, his tone lacking the tone of accusation Maize had been expecting. His expression was rather slack, and his eyes were unreadable. She couldn't tell whether or not he seemed suspicious, concerned, or somewhere in between the two.

"Couldn't sleep," she answered indifferently, crossing her arms to appear relaxed and in control, when not a second before she could have stabbed him just for walking up behind her. It was nearly a quarter past one in the morning. "Now why are you awake?"

Alec shrugged. "Thought I heard something and came to check it out," he answered, running a hand through his slightly dishevelled hair as his eyes trailed over the room once. However, the movement with his arm brought direct attention to the fact that the detective was lacking a shirt, granting her a rather impressive view of his sculpted abdomen prodding under tan skin. Maize did a doubletake. He stood there in only a pair of black jogging pants, hanging at the waistline of lean hips.

Snap out of it already!

Maize mentally cursed the detective's name over in her mind, and herself for thinking—even for a moment—that she found him attractive.

Stupid Alec fucking West.

It was a miracle, an absolute miracle, that she had been telling the truth about the detective being so oblivious to certain things—otherwise she knew for the life of him that if he had caught her staring, she would probably never hear the end of it.

Maize quickly got herself together. "It's just me, nothing wrong. Feel free to go back to sleep now," she told him, making it sound more like an order than a suggestion.

"Kind of hard to do that when you already woke me up, Maizey," he replied with a chuckle as he focused on her again, looking past her towards her tea set up. His eyes suddenly flashed with something like concern. "There a reason you were about to add nerve calmers to your drink?" he asked.

Maize mentally scolded herself. She forgot she had left them there, out in the open. Unfortunately, the detective was not oblivious to everything it seemed. No matter, all she had to do was dodge the question.

"Can't a girl have a cup of tea without being interrogated?"

She hoped her tone would steer him into annoyance, or even possibly, a response of jeering back. But much to her alarm, the detective merely rolled his eyes and took a small step forward in the already close space between them. Maize felt her breath inhale, though she hid it well as Alec's gaze bore down over her.

"You need to learn to stop avoiding my questions Maizey..." he said, the corners of his lips curving up into an almost teasingly cheshire smile—she would be lying to say the look, with the dark fanning over half his features, didn't make him look slightly endearing. "...Or we're going to have ourselves a problem..."

The way he spoke was captivating in a way that made the air around her suddenly feel warmer than before. The words were made to sound like a threat, only not in the way Maize was used to. The air between them was beguiling, it was becoming erotic, it was—

It was Alec fucking West trying to mess with her.

She could see it in the devious look in his eyes hidden behind the smile. He really was the fucking devil wasn't he?

Maize mentally huffed. But still, she was no angel, so why not take the opportunity this presented?

Maize met his gaze, staring up at him as she tilted her head slightly to the left. "I think we may already have ourselves a problem..." she began slowly. She could see the surprise in his eyes at the softness of her voice. His look sparking with unexpectedness and curiosity. A part of him had just been messing around before, she knew, but now, was he curious enough to see where this went? Too bad for him, he's in for a rude awakening. She stepped closer, nearly closing the space between them. Now it was Alec's turn to hold his breath. "And that is..." she was nearly eye to eye with him now. "You lost this."

Alec blinked and then frowned. "Wait wha—" he barely got the words out before a flash of black flew up in between him and Maize and landed over half his face in a second.

Maize laughed. The shirt had been hanging off the side of one of the chairs—forgotten there earlier that day it seemed. And she watched with amusement as the piece of clothing dropped from the detective's face and into his hands. It was a split second later before the realization dawned on him; she had been playing him too the whole time.

"Ouch, Maizey," he sighed jokingly, feigning hurt, "and here I thought we were about to become more than just friends..." he chuckled humorously as he slid the shirt over his arms.

Maize gave a roll of her eyes as they settled back down into ease. At least this Alec—teasing, annoying, fully clothed Alec—she could deal with. The seductive, enticing side of him was something that had nearly caught her off guard.

"Bold of you to assume we are 'friends' to begin with," she stated pointedly.

"Aw, don't be like that Maizey...we have a truce don't we?" Alec replied.

She smirked. "We do, for now. But if you want to keep it that way then keep your flirting in your pants and don't bother me about my tea."

"It seemed like you were the one who was flirting to me," he countered with a light chuckle as he took a step back and made himself comfortable crossing his arms and leaning against the counter to watch her make her tea.

But Maize had stopped moving.

"What's wrong? No comeback—?"

"Shut up," she hissed, freezing in place. Her voice dropped and Alec notably became more alert at the serious turn her voice had taken. Something wasn't right. Maize could feel a chill run up her spine as she remained still and strained her ears to listen.

"What was that sound?"