Thank you so much for your reviews, guys! You are wonderful! Now, here's chapter two... it was rather short in German but in English it is... well... very short. I'm sorry about that, chapter 3 is going to be a longer one again. I hope, you'll enjoy it anyway and keep up your wonderful reviews :)

2.

I didn't know how much time had passed but based on my relatively far grown experiment it must have been at least half an hour when I finally again began to realize who exactly I was talking to.

"Gin… are you waiting for something in particular?", I asked without taking my eyes off the micropipette I was adjusting.

"No." He bent down and I got a bit dizzy in an instant. "I'm examining your work to confirm if you're good enough for the organization." The dizziness faded. Did this man really just presume that I was not good at my job? I won't stand for that, loose cannon standing behind me or not.

"I am.", I therefore declared matter-of-factly. Not to impress or to act up but merely because it accorded the facts. I was good.

His hand settled heavily on my right shoulder and I felt his breath lightly on the skin of my ear when he laughed quietly.

"By all means, you don't lack assertiveness, little Sherry."

I tried my best to keep my breath calm. Not too shallow. But not too deep either, because with every breath I took and also scented his odour I came closer to fainting. Because of fear? For the greatest part, certainly. I struggled to understand my own feelings towards this strange and dangerous man, but one thing became more and more clear with every second he spent in my lab: it was not exclusively fear that I felt in his proximity.

With a clattering sound my pipette fell down as he tentatively moved his hand on my shoulder, sneaked up the collar of my lab coat disconcertingly gentle and finally reached the bare skin of my neck. Instantly I had goose bumps all over my body and didn't dare to breathe.

"Yet you are afraid of me."

I didn't even try to respond. I was entirely occupied with struggling against impending unconsciousness.

"Oh?", he whispered softly in my ear. "So afraid you don't even dare to respond?"

I would have liked to respond but my head had somehow been swept empty. I didn't know how to produce sounds and connect them to meaningful words. Actually I was having serious problems with sitting upright in my chair.

"Little Sherry, you really are an exceptional girl."

The back of his hand on my cheek and his low chuckle in my ear once again posed an unimagined challenge to my contenance but then he finally straightened up and leisurely swept out of the room, his black coat billowing behind him. I thought I actually heard the thumping noise of the stone dropping off my mind – I would roughly estimate it weighted several tons.

"Gin?"

He turned round with his eyebrows raised.

"I am not little."