Elena hated closing. It generally meant she had to stay late by herself, miss dinner with her family, and walk home after dark. She didn’t want to argue with the schedule, though. She needed this job.
Still, it didn’t make her any less apprehensive when she went out back to throw the trash away. She approached the bin, keeping an eye out for rats. She heard a noise behind her, and reacted on instinct. With a soft squeal, she turned and flung the bag of trash in her hand as hard as she could toward the sound. She watched, horrified, as it flew wide and landed on top of a person walking past the alleyway. It burst, sending coffee grounds and paper cups everywhere.
“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry!” Elena cried, hurrying forward to see if she could help somehow. “I heard a noise and I just … reacted. Are you okay? I’m so sorry.”
Later on, Dorian would be annoyed with himself for letting his guard down enough to get hit by a bag of trash pitched by a young woman over a foot shorter than he is. Later on, he’d rationalize it away by saying it’s not like he ever bothered to train for getting hit with something so ridiculous as a garbage bag in the first place.
“I’m fine,” he reassured her, sounding more disappointed than anything else as he tried to brush the wet coffee grounds from his jacket, really only managing to spread them around. “There might be a lot of weird creatures in town, but I don’t think any of them have flying garbage as a mortal weakness,” Dorian added with a quirk of a smile, trying to lighten the mood. “It’s okay. Everyone’s on edge.”
@elenaxrusso