It happened in a blink. One moment, she strode along the hall, her steps swift and sure. A few minor concerns rattled through her head, distracting her from her surroundings. Not that it really mattered—she’d walked this hall since she was a child. The twenty steps it took to get from one room to another was etched into her memory.
Such a pride, however, would prove to be her downfall.
A table had shifted ever-so-slightly—a change so subtle one would ever normally care to notice it. She pulled her foot up off the hardwood floor, sailing it confidently into another step.
The crack echoed up and down the hall.
For a breathless moment, she hovered in an anticipatory numbness.
Then—
A guttural cry escaped first. She crumpled as the pain throbbed through her toe, eating like a fuse through her nerves and up to her brain, where it inspired a string of obscenities that crashed violently against the walls around her.
The sensation started to fade after a second or two. She wiggled her toes. Her breathing came back in gasps.
When she’d recovered enough, she curled her lips into a sneer, then gripped the offending table to hoist herself back to her feet.
She purposefully thwacked her good foot into the nearest table leg. “Asshole,” she muttered before limping away.
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