Protrusion

When I first started this blog, I worried that I would run out of prompts.  I spent hours looking around on writing prompt websites (none exactly like mine, I was pleased to see) and made lists of the ones I liked best.  What's wonderful is that I can honestly say, in the eight months I've been doing this, I haven't ever had to go back to those initial lists.  In fact, I often have more than one prompt rolling around in my head when it comes Monday and time to write.

(I've also recently found out I can write posts in advance and set them to publish later ... that could be very convenient sometimes!)

This week's post is inspired by a comment on one of my earlier posts.  I've mentioned my good friend Rebecca (also my amazing critique partner) before.  She recently posted the comment she'd made on my blog in her blog.  It's fantastic.  If you didn't catch it in the comments the first time around, I highly suggest you read it now.

The prompt I'd used that week was simple: Her head throbbed with excruciating pain.

And yet, Rebecca came up with a brilliant response. 

In that spirit, our prompt for this week is:  It protruded from her left leg.

Enjoy!

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My response:

There was no way to conceal the blade under the tight, black pants.  It protruded from her left leg, the handle jutting out like some cancerous bulge, just a hand's length beneath her hips. 

Kit pursed her lips, then stripped her pants down far enough to retrieve the knife and its sheath.  The pants looked uncomfortable, but the pleather molded easily to her body and moved with her.  She could find another place to carry her weapon.  The pants were more important. 

She moved across the room to the duffel bag she'd brought home with her from the intensive self-defense course.  Six months she'd been gone, but if she was honest with herself, the girl who had left would never come home.  She'd been broken and battered, a world-class gymnast who'd just gotten her golden ticket - her Olympic qualification - when she'd been kidnapped, brutalized, and left for dead by some rabid fan. 

Terrified.  She'd spent three days terrified for her life.  She was in perfect shape, physically.  Strong.  Flexible.  Ridiculously accurate when doing round-offs and vaults.  But she didn't have any training in self defense.

Kit pulled a different holster from the bag and secured the knife in the small of her back.  She stood and caught an image of herself in the antique, full length mirror that stood on a stand in the corner of her room.  She looked like a thorn that had landed in a ball of cotton.  Her old room in her parents house, white lace and blue, fluffy pillows, was just as she'd been before that fateful night.  Clean and innocent.  She stood, dark and brittle, feeling out of place.

She couldn't stay in here.  It was too smothering ... but the thudding of the bass coming from downstairs reminded her that she'd rather be here than at her eighteenth birthday party.  Kit pulled a loose, red shirt on, checked to make sure the blade was concealed, and stepped out the door.