Paricheadle +96 (in the storm) :3
With the upcoming Hunter Exam, the entire office had been hard at work preparing. And while the Exam committee and the Zodiac Twelve had things well under control, it still fell to the Association’s higher leadership to put in the extra hours to ensure the event went off without a hitch.
So when Cheadle finally looked at the clock and saw it was three hours after she would have normally left, she looked at all the other empty desks and knew she still had at least another hour to go before she could call it a night.
Suddenly, the lights flickered, then went out. Cheadle stumbled to her feet and made her way to the window, lifting the closed blinds to reveal a dark, angry sky and heavy rain.
She had thought she was the only one left in the building, but a few minutes later she heard footsteps in the hallway and the creak of the office door opening wider. Cheadle’s eyes were adjusting quickly to the darkness, but the brightness of a flashlight beam temporarily blinded her to the identity of its owner.
"My dear Cheadle!" It was Pariston. Of course he would be the only other person there. "How like you to be working late. Looks like we’ll have to fix this little problem ourselves, hmm? Would you like to come with me to find the power breakers?"
She didn’t think sitting alone in a dark office was much of a fun alternative, so she agreed, keeping up with his quick footsteps as he led the way down to the lowest floor of the building.
There was a large clap of thunder, and Cheadle jumped.
"Do you not like storms?" Pariston asked, his tone conversational.
"Not particularly," Cheadle answered.
Pariston produced the keys to the maintenance closet, and pressed the flashlight into Cheadle’s hands. “Hold this for me. Ah, storms this bad never last for long. We’ll be fine.”
Once inside, he quickly began work to reset the power systems. “It all runs electronically,” he told her, speaking continuously to distract her from the storm. “We might have to reboot the system—even if the power comes back there’s no guarantee everything in the building will work properly.” He laughed softly to himself. “Like the electronic locks on the front doors. We might be stuck here a little longer than we thought.”
She’d thought Pariston was being suspiciously kind to her earlier; now, she felt that familiar irritation for him returning. The unspoken, ‘we might be stuck here together.’
It was hard to decide which she hated more: storms, or Pariston.
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