Cherub: Dark Days

Chapter 1: Boys and Girls

CHERUB Campus was never busy but it sure as hell felt like it on this sweltering hot day in the middle of July. James Adams sat behind a slightly messy desk in the banana shaped Mission Control building. After all the years since James had been a cherub agent they still hadn't got the iris scanner working. Instead they had changed to keycards but not they changed to fingerprints and keycards at the same time to stop anyone from getting in. This is because a few years back a group of navy shirts got in and changed records of their missions so they got their black shirts, these kids were expelled immediately.

James sat behind the desk, he massive sweat marks on his back from the heat as the air conditioning in his office didn't work. He jumped slightly when the door swung open. He had arranged for newly appointed grey shirt, Scott Ross to come and get briefed on his first mission. Scott had heard about James. James had become a "legend" on campus. He accomplished this by cheating on every girlfriend he had, hitting on anything in a skirt and being a jammy git when it came to missions. You wouldn't have thought the man in his late 20's had been such a lady killer but his record spoke for itself.

Scott was intimidated by the now senior mission controller and sat slowly into his leather chair. He was more or less perched there but James didn't exactly mind.

"I can see your nervous" James Smiled. Scott blushed at how obvious it was.

"Just sit tight and listen up for this mission could get quite lengthy" James carried on to say.

Across on the other side of campus was Angelina Sill ran breathless around the running track. She had gotten 50 punishment laps a day for 1 week for copying her best friend, Abby Grassley's homework and then losing Abby's. Abby had laughed it off but their English teacher Mr Campbell hit the roof. He said it was un-Cherub like to copy homework when in reality all Cherubs copied homework from time to time. She could handle the running it was the fact all the boys took the piss out of her for it.

" Wanna copy my homework beautiful!" Her boyfriend, Harry Linch, cheered from the edge of the track. She just smiled and when she came round gave him a hug and a peck on the cheek.

"I hate you sometimes" She smirked. They held hands all the way back to the main building. They both were on the 8th floor. Her room was next to the lift on the far end of building and she was knackered so she crashed in Harry's room for a bit. They were both 14 year old Navy shirts. Their relationship started on a mission in Russia were they ended up cuddling over hot chocolates and an open fire place. They snuggled on the sofa watching re runs of EastEnders.

Scott read through the briefing before looking at James and breaking into a huge smile.

"Thank you Sir" He beamed "I really,really appreciate being picked for this mission" James smiled at him, James knew this mission was going to be hard on the grey shirt but he thought Scott would be able to handle it. The mission would probably only last a month, 6 weeks top but James wanted Scott to feel good and told him it might be longer. Scott practically skipped out of James's office and onto the gravel path leading to the main building. He wanted to go through the mission briefing again and check he understood it all. His ear to ear grin when he got up to the 7th floor was un mistakable as his old Basic Training parter, Sophie Murphy, started to talk to him,

"Hey Scott" He had a massive crush on her ever since she helped him in Basic Training. She was as beautiful as 12 year olds can get, Long flowing blonde hair, Sparkling blue eyes, Perky breasts on the way and cute cheek bones to match. She was a nice girl but lost her temper very easily. But Scott was so thrown by her talking to him out of the blue he nearly fell over.

"Hey" He said meekly, Sophie caught this and grinned at him

"Scared of me or something or are you just not happy to see me" She sounded sad as she said this so Scott got worried

"No i love seeing you" He realized how eager he sounded and blushed. She smiled and hugged him.

"Don't get nervous around me" She said reassuringly. This made him more nervous but he enjoyed the hug and attention.

"So is it true you fancy me?" She asked quite casually. Scott's heart missed a beat and he it felt like he had been shot.

"Well, erm, the thing is..." He murmured "Maybe" His face went so red it was like looking at a big talking tomato. She grinned and kissed him slyly on the cheek and walked off as if nothing had happened. Scott lit up like a firework after a brief moment to think about it. He had just been kissed by the girl he loved!

A huge crack came from Harry's room. Angelina burst out of the room in tears. Madeline Sinclair was in the hall and was shocked by what she saw and heard. Madeline and Angelina were friends so instinctively she followed her into Angelina's room to comfort her.

Angelina was sniffling a lot as she shot words of distress and discomfort for Madeline to hear.

"Calm down" Madeline said soothingly "Start from the beginning" Angelina looked at her and nodded, she breathed slowly. Angelina usually composed herself within seconds so this must have been something bad. Her jet black hair ran over her eyes and looked a little ragged from the punishment, her brown eyes glazed over with tears and her cheeks red.

"He,He,he's been, ch,ch,cheating on me!" Angelina burst into tears again. Madeline shot back, she couldn't believe it,Why had Harry cheated on her? Who with? and for how long?

All these thoughts ran through her head. She held Angelina close and hugged her tightly, rocking back and forth slightly.

"How did you find out" She asked slowly trying to hold back her burning curiosity.

"He went to the bathroom" Angelina began "I saw his phone and he had a message, so i read it" Madeline realized where this was going instantly,

"It was from Susan, saying, Hey baby when you coming to my room xxx" Madeline couldn't think what to say. She just held her tighter.