Undone.
I lean heavily on the cabinet,her image momentarily blurred in the haze of the grey smoke I'm breathing out. She catches sight of my merest flicker of movement and her normally cool controlled exterior crumbles in the blink of an eye. She senses my obvious delight in this erosion and she is undone. I reinforce it with a knowing half smile at my achievement which only serves to further loosen her grasp on why she is here. She is here because of him and she knows with frightening clarity that I know. I enjoy watching here with a close scrutiny that unnerves her and she tries to conceal this, her hesitant words a jumble of excuses as she prepares to leave.
I congratulate myself on a job well done. I need to reinforce my position of authority with her on the rare occasions our paths cross. I once thought she had failed me, that I'd misjudged my pairing of him and her. Him, so childlike with his fantasies and theories, running off thoughtlessly. She, so thorough, so demanding of scientific evidence, reining him in. She was to wear him down, destroy him slowly under my guiding hand. But it was not to be. Instead it has worked out better than I could ever have imagined. I had not taking into account that she would grow to care for him and he for her and this has worked to my advantage. As now. I have taken him from her, only momentarily but she is not to know that and now she prowles the corridors of power seeking answers to find him.
As her initial surprise at my presence gives way to mounting anger she fixes me with a pointed icy stare, giving her time to gather her gamut of fragmented thoughts. I stand up straight, towering above her tiny frame intimidating her but she has gathered herself now and her delicate grace sweeps across the room, her eyes blazing, never leaving me. I take another breath and breathe out a long twist of smoke that spirals in her direction as I make for the door ahead of her, leaving her to her questions.