Sophie
The loud beep of her morning alarm pierced through the sleep that still held Sophie unconscious like a thick blanket. Slowly, she blinked her eyes open desperately fighting the urge to slide back under. She had to get to the office so she could get started on the Miller article.
Sophie yawned as she forced herself not to fall back asleep and blinked around in confusion at the unfamiliar room. It took her a long moment to remember that she wasn't back home at her apartment in New York, but as soon as it did it all came back in a rush. The promotion. Harry and his brilliant idea to pit his two best writers head to head. Sending her to Washington D.C. with…oh my god. Cayden.
She shot bolt upright as the memories from the night before crashed through her. Everything that they had done together. Things she’d never done before. She quickly scanned the hotel room. It didn’t take her long to realize she was alone once more. Cayden must have taken off while she was still sleeping.
She wasn’t surprised. Not really. Not after everything she knew about his love ‘em and leave ‘em philosophy. Sophie let out a sigh. She was surprised by the relief she felt. She always pictured the morning after her first time together with a man spent holding each other and snuggling in bed as the sun rose to peek through the windows.
But she needed time to put herself back in order before she had to face the world again, and especially before she had to face Cayden Ray. Sophie shook her head at herself as she threw back the blanket and headed to the bathroom, her thoughts racing as she brushed her teeth.
Her gray eyes met their reflection in the vanity mirror, and she was startled once more. She thought she would look different. Be different somehow. But except for a slight flush in her cheeks, she was just…the same. Same old Sophie Stone.
On the outside at least. On the inside, her thoughts were in chaos. Logically, she knew she should regret giving in to Cayden. But despite all her worries and doubts about how it might change their working relationship, she just couldn’t. She couldn’t make herself regret it. Sophie could still remember the pleasure from the night before. Unlike anything she’d ever felt. And she knew it was because of him.
She stopped her thoughts cold as they started to sway back towards Cayden but it was harder than it should have been and Sophie forced her resolve to firm as she threw her long brown hair up in a messy top knot to get it out of her face. She was there to do a job, and she’d be damned if she let Cayden Ray get in her way of the senior writer position. That job was hers. Now she just had to go out and earn it.
It took her only a few more minutes to finish getting ready. She grabbed her bag equipped with plenty of pens and the memo pad she never went anywhere without and threw it over her shoulder.
Sophie wasn’t surprised to find Cayden already downstairs in the hotel lobby, freshly showered and looking extremely satisfied with himself. But she was surprised by the indifferent look he cast her way as she walked up beside him.
“So, ready to get to work?” She asked uncertainly. She knew how to deal with asshole Cayden, or horn dog Cayden, but wasn’t sure how to react to the sudden distance, especially after what had happened between them the night before.
“Yep.” He answered curtly, his sunglasses shading his eyes and Sophie found herself wishing that he would take them off so that she could see what was going on in their blue depths. Sophie opened her mouth, about to speak again but then stopped herself. She knew he didn’t do commitment. Hell, he didn’t even do relationships, but it was like the night before hadn’t even happened.
She didn’t know what she’d been expecting but this cold indifference definitely hadn’t been it.
“Well, my taxi’s here.” He said, breaking the tense silence that had fallen around them. “Good luck with your article.”
"Yeah, you too," Sophie muttered after him, but she might as well have saved her breath. He was already out through the lobby doors and ducking into the waiting car. "I guess I'll just have to find my own way to the protest site.”
It took her nearly twenty minutes to catch a cab in the crush of the weekend's protests, and by the time she finally did, Sophie was fuming. She should have known better when it came to Cayden, but she had expected…something. Anything. A firm handshake would have been better than the cold shoulder and downright rudeness he’d shown her back in the hotel lobby.
She needed to put all thoughts of Cayden Ray aside and focus on the job in front of her. That was the most important thing now. She deserved that promotion, and she was going to go down swinging if she had to. She just needed to put all her attention on writing the best article of her career and leave all memories of the night before where they belonged, in the past.
By the time she made it to the promenade where the protest was being held the streets were already filled with people marching and shouting slogans. With the thrill of the job rushing through her she leaped from the cab, her notebook already in hand as she dove head first into the thickest part of the protest.
Sophie could practically feel the chaotic energy in the air, in the way the protester’s shouts grew angrier and angrier, spurred on by the mass of churning people waving signs and fists.
She didn’t waste any time, leaping into the fray and writing furiously as she moved from protester to protester asking questions. The pages of her notebook filled with interview gold, the excitement of getting a good scoop on the story spurring her deeper into the mob. Before she even realized it, she was in the most furious part of the street.
As if a switch had been hit, in an instant the feeling in the air changed, morphing from charged to downright dangerous. The shouts turned into war cries, and before Sophie could make it back to the safety of the sidelines, police swarmed the area driving the tension even higher.
Everywhere she turned there were angry faces, their shouts filling her ears and she was lost in the middle of it. The police force on one side and the protesters on the other. Trapped with no way out.
Her only thought was to get out of there with her notes intact, so she ran towards the officer in the blue uniform that had just stepped out of a sheriff's car. Sophie had just opened her mouth to ask for help in getting outside the perimeter of the protest turned riot when a sickeningly sharp pain stabbed into the side of her just above her left temple.
Sophie didn’t have time to scream, didn’t have time to do anything except watch the pavement come up to meet her a snap second before her whole world went black.