Eros Academy

03.

Ella

THEY STARTED IT. That was the first thing I heard when I entered the cafe. The weather was contrasted to my pleasure valet of rainbows and sunshine. I never liked being outside on an unpleasant rainy day since it quite mislead my ways. I tend to lose focus and feel the need to be hydrated. If I tried harder to concentrate I would end up thinking about my parents and that's something I do not fancy.

"You just ruined my image." The man spat, his face wild with anger flickering across them. He looked almost forty but still quite young for an older individual. A few others stood behind him with a perplexed face, but half of them were disgusted. 

"I..." The guy who stood in front of him trailed off. He looked almost the same age as mine except he seemed a bit younger when I gazed at him a second time. He stared down at the floor, guilt spreading across his face. Around him lay heaps of bodies, highschoolers, perhaps. They weren't dead, but they looked like they might have if the fight wasn't halted soon. 

"This is not what I expected from you." The man said, earning a scowl from the guy. "I should have heeded my ears to Lest and Nancy!"

"They are liars." The guy sighed, clenching his fists and I wondered if he was the reason for the guys who were half-dead. "You are always expecting something more from those two. I am not planning on living a life made of lies."

"Enough!" The man sounded similar to my history teacher who liked to brag everything. "Nico, you are fired!"

The guy, whose name I assumed was Nico, looked up with a face that said I am going to stuff his mouth with salads.

But he confused me when he said, "Fine. Whatever."

Not the response you give when you hear the word "Fired" If it were me, I would have reacted in a different way, throwing tantrums. Especially if the blame is placed upon me for some stupid reasons.

The waiter guy made his way to the counter and started packing up his things. He was violently stuffing his items inside the bag and I pondered if he was upset about losing his job, though he didn't look like that a second earlier. 

A girl as petite as him stood across the counter, sadness engulfing her face. She tried to start a conversation with the guy, but he cut her off. Pulling the strap of the backpack on his shoulders and sending a small smile in her way, he approached the exit of the cafe pausing to kick one of the bodies away. 

Rebellious.

Pushing the glass door open, he made his way out. The man, who I supposed was the owner of Muffins Cafe, spat again and stormed into one of the VIP reservation rooms. The bulky men who stood behind him gave each other weird obscure casts and followed him.

I watched as a few janitors came with a stretcher and placed one of the guys who lay on the ground, upon it. This continued for the next few minutes until everybody was taken away.

"Welcome to Muffins Cafe," The girl who earlier stood at the counter beamed, though sadness laced her voice. I wondered if she was someone closer to him. "Can I take your orders, Mam?"

I aspired to give her an answer but my eyes were locked on the guy, who stood nonchalantly outside, on the streets. He fished out his phone from his pants pockets and proceeded for a call. He wasn't tall, like how I always found guys to be. My inner p*****t wanted me to go talk to him because with that handsome face he should have been modeling instead of serving food.

"Mam, your orders please?" The girl said snapping me out of my truck of thoughts. 

"Sure," I clasped my hands together as my eyes wandered off to where he stood, again. The phone call was over and I watched as he sat on the bench near the sidewalk, gazing downwards. "An Iced-Latte would do."

"Right away," she said, walking away with her notepad.

A Lambo ceased in front of the guy and a buff dude in a black suit opened its sophisticated door. Race cars were pretty common on the Eastside Avenue, since games were often played. Usually, they were meant to show the victory of a player, but I didn't surmise why someone with a race car would come here on a rainy day.

They conversed for straight ten minutes before the guy named Nico got in the car with him. Though he did show some hesitation in going with him–because he waited to clutch on the door handle for a while–he eventually got in. The engine gave out a deafening roar that rebounded in the streets and I watched as the car sped away.

"I am not supposed to be interfering," The girl said as she placed a saucer tray upon which was the cup I ordered, on the table. "But you seem to be lost."

"Truth be told, I am." It was a definite summarization of the way I resembled. I was gawking at a complete stranger, avoiding the task at hand. "Who was that guy? Oh, and thank you for the coffee."

"Guy?" she sounded so clueless and I realized that the incident was long gone. "You are very much welcome, Mam." 

"Yeah, you know," I waved my hand in the air as I took a sip out of my coffee. "The one who just got fired."

"Oh." A light sigh escaped her lips, and she took her own moment of silence. "He is...my friend. And he worked here as a...." she shrugged her shoulders like it was obvious.

"Waiter," I finished the sentence for her, taking another sip. "Why did he get fired in the first place?"

"He kicked some guys." She bluntly replied.

"And?"

"Broke some bones."

"Why?"

"Because they were mean to me."

"Oh, wow." I smiled to myself at his attribute towards persona happiness. If I had a chance to thank him, I would have. "That's so...sweet."

"Yeah...it is," she smiled, as her face lit up with an instant premonition. "I had asked him to stay back, but he was kind of stubborn, you could say. If he listened to my words...maybe he wouldn't have been fired."

She had a point there, a precise one exactly. "At least he helped you out. How cool is that?"

"Dynamic," she smiled. "That's all that I can think of. I am glad he came to the rescue, although I don't appreciate the fact that he gave up his job."

"Hmm," I took another sip and puffed my cheeks, which was a very weird hobby of mine. "Thank you, again."

"Anytime." She beamed, before taking her place back at the counter.

I shrunk a little in my seat and stretched before recollecting what I doing here. The intercom device vibrated in my hoodie pocket, and I shut it off before anyone could notice. It quoted the same thing over: Explosion. Wave occurrences are possible. Usually, I wasn't used to catch up with threats, but this one seemed more concerned with our Head Department.

Everything happening around the streets seemed calm and collected. Pedestrians, most of them who took walks as a daily routine and the rest who were in a hectic rush, passed the streets endlessly. Some couples were talking to each other, holding hands under the same umbrella. Few kids slid paper boats into the puddles of water, earning a sound scolding from their moms. There was no way someone would hire a hitman, let alone an explosion.

I took a huge gulp out of my coffee and let out a sigh. Placing the cup back on the saucer, my ears registered sirens blaring in the distance. 

"Time out!" A cop yelled into his megaphone, earning glances from every nook and corner of the street. "Everybody, proceed to Livre Avenue!"

Livre Avenue. It was at least a five-mile distance from Eastside, and I pondered what the necessity was. 

"I repeat, Livre Avenue!" Another cop took charge of the yelling, and he made sure everyone heard it right. "There is an explosion on its way!"

Oh?

It was hard for the cops to get head-on information about earlier attacks. My agency made sure of that as well. Which meant, someone else was playing in this game of hide and seek. 

I stood from my seat, watching a few people surrendering to the cops' words and stretched myself. Fishing out a few cents, I placed it upon the table and went ahead to push the glass door open. 

"Thank you," I said without taking a glimpse behind and closing the frame as I felt the waitress's eyes bore into me. 

The ground outside kind of rumbled and it felt offbeat. An underground invasion, perhaps. But that sounded ridiculous to me. Why would the people who are behind this, expose themselves on the radar? So, that wasn't an option. 

Before I could take another step, a bullet wheezed past my head.

I paused, taking measured breaths. 

I turned around to find a cop holding a gun, with extreme difficulty. Almost as if he didn't want to shoot, but he had to nevertheless. At first, I surmised he purposefully sent it my direction, but then I thought: He doesn't even know me. 

"Move out of the way!" he yelled, panting. "Miss, move out of the way!"

Looking ahead of me, I found a guy running away from the site of chaos. Assuming he was the person the cop was aiming for, I wondered if he was crazy to undeviatingly go down the way that led to the police lane. 

An explosion shook the land. It was just a petty trick for distraction, but all hell broke lose.

Civilians started running in different directions, avoiding the cop directions. One of the buildings caught spontaneous fire and spread like a plague. The heat consumed the chillness and the ground thundered in humongous definition. Glasses of doors and windows raised above me shattered and I made a quick pace to circumvent it.   

This was weird. 

My gaze followed around the whole ambiance of the environment, and I noticed cops firing in orientation. But it wasn't the best option, if anything, they just made it worse. Right then, my training instincts kicked in. 

"Hold your fire!" I found myself yelling at the cop whose gun was directed at the guy who was running past the lane, and proceeded to the Eastside Station. "Civilians in proximity—hold your fire!"

I never liked this job. Honestly, I thought this was stupid.

"Make a run for the curve," I said into the two-way radio, automatically connecting to the police walkie-talkie. "I repeat, Eastside Station!"

I almost felt like spiderman, except for the fact that he had a huge fanbase and when he did something, it ended up cool.

"Miss Ella." A hiss occurred from the other side, and I pondered what had crashed into her puny brain. "Your target's only paces away."

First, I hated someone calling me by my first name.

Second, I hated her.

"So?" I found myself saying, even though that is not the kind of respect a Head Officer accepts. And if your Head is a lady with severe temper issues and constantly sues you just because you spilled your morning coffee on her elaborate business suit, then amen to that.

"So," Meta Crosswood repeated, her tone definitely not coping up with assurance, "I require you to stop yelling and find the culprit yourself. Forget the cops, they do nothing."

"What does that have to do with me?" I could see my target dashing past police barricades and SWAT trucks.

"Nothing," She hissed again and I knew that my conversation with her today wouldn't cease so well. "You just made yourself aware to the cops. Now, they will come searching for you."

"I-" Before I could say anything, Meta interrupted me, "Hoping to meet you soon, Ella."

I was done for sure this time. But I had a task at hand right now and I needed to focus, rather than forcing myself to think about the thirty-year-old lady with a huge self-esteem.

"Hey, you there!" One of the cops yelled and I turned back again only to see them walking in my direction.

With one arm clutching onto my two-way radio, I pulled my hood over my head and started making my pace faster.

"Hey, stop!" I could hear the guns being loaded, but I was sure that they wouldn't fire. Not with people running around and sirens blaring for time out.

I paused to take a breath and scanned my surroundings. Fellow passengers gawking down at the street from their buses, a mom trying to muffle out her baby's cry, civilians running for their lives while explosions shook the ground.

I discerned my target round the curve that leads to the Eastside Station.

My guess had been right.

A ride would have done further damage in this hectic road, and making past the barricades of cops athwart me wasn't an option.

I needed to make it out before anyone else notices anything questionable with me.

I began walking first, then my velocity increased to a jog, and finally aiming for the Station, I run. I could plainly hear shouts in my direction, but I didn't stop. Not when I had my eyes on the track.

Being a spy was crazy.