It's obvious when the woman on her knee at the edge of the pooled beam of light pauses. She straightens marginally, the shape of the light dipping and narrowing and then consolidating to little more than a hot ring as the body of the flashlight is set directly against the barrel of the standing washing machine. She waits there in the murky light for two seconds. For five, maybe, listening hard for the more tell tale scrape of clumsy bodies jerking around the department floor. When it doesn't come, the light comes abruptly back as Maureen sweeps her immediate surroundings with the beam.
Passes. Jerks it back. Plants the light firmly on the crouched shape of a very flesh and blood girl.
Some of the tension inherent in her shoulders sags immediately out of them. The glare of the light defers downward by a few inches.
no subject
It's obvious when the woman on her knee at the edge of the pooled beam of light pauses. She straightens marginally, the shape of the light dipping and narrowing and then consolidating to little more than a hot ring as the body of the flashlight is set directly against the barrel of the standing washing machine. She waits there in the murky light for two seconds. For five, maybe, listening hard for the more tell tale scrape of clumsy bodies jerking around the department floor. When it doesn't come, the light comes abruptly back as Maureen sweeps her immediate surroundings with the beam.
Passes. Jerks it back. Plants the light firmly on the crouched shape of a very flesh and blood girl.
Some of the tension inherent in her shoulders sags immediately out of them. The glare of the light defers downward by a few inches.