Prologue:
A girl stands alone on the street, unnoticed by the passing cars. Her dirty-blonde hair peeking out from under her blue knit cap looks gold in the glare of the vibrant sunset. It's early winter and although it's barely six o'clock, dusk will fall in a few short hours.
She pulls her brown jacket tight against her body and pulls her cap lower on her head. Snow falls slowly in lazy, twirling patterns and she has a flush to her cheeks from the cold.
Cars pass slowly on the road, making slush and sending sheets of water onto the wet sidewalk. Shivering, she darts across the street. She merges carefully with a small group going into a bar and ducks inside.
As her eyes adjust to the dimness inside, she takes in her surroundings. A long counter runs along the left wall with many seats, but few are taken. Bartenders refill drinks and orders from behind the counter and curvy girls in skimpy outfits line the bar, captivating several mens' attention. Clinks of glasses and gruff voices fill the tiny space.
One of the bartenders looks at her for a full minute(56.74 seconds to be exact). He is eyeing her because she is obviously not old enough to drink.
The girl's eyes skim over a few small tables and she pulls up a chair at one of the empty ones. The chair's legs scrape loudly across the floor and the cushion is torn in several places. As she takes her seat, she pulls out a beat-up menu and flips through it absently. Her eyes flick to the right. Booths line the wall, and many are already filled.
She notices a young man sitting in the booth in the farthest corner. A short mess of black hair sits on his head and he pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He's alone and seems absorbed in reading his textbook. Squinting a bit, the girl focuses in on the cover. Differential Calculus
Her mind reels. That is extremely heavy reading material...especially for a person in a bar like this.
Her senses go into alert mode. Scanning the customers at the bar, she takes in everything about them. A few of them are guys no older than her. As she looks at each one out of the corner of her eye, she meets the gaze of one of the guys her age.
He's staring at her openly. His emerald-green eyes run up and down her body several times before returning her gaze. Even in the dark she can tell he's ruggedly handsome. His dark hair is perfectly messy and neat at the same time and broad shoulders lead way to muscular forearms. Something about him screams mysterious and she can't help feeling the need to touch him to make sure he's real. Almost as if he knows her thoughts, the side of his mouth turns up into a smirk. An incredibly sexy smirk.
One of his friends notices and glances at her with a dark glint in his eyes before returning to his drink. Even though green-eyes is amazingly hot, his friend looks like a Greek god. The girl inside her can't help but drool.
The green-eyed guy is still staring at her intensely and the spy in her can't help but notice the infinitesimal movement of his lips that give him away for what he truly is. As he whispers into his hidden comms unit, she notes the sudden shift of intensity in the other two boys. Their backs become tense and their bodies are stiff. Anyone that wasn't a spy would be fooled and think they were just relaxing after a long day at work. Together, the guy in the back-corner booth and the Greek god begin to stand and move towards her.
Nonchalantly, she backs out of the bar and onto the dark street. Adrenaline courses through her veins and she sprints down the street to the waiting van. She hears fast approaching footsteps behind her, muffled by the freshly fallen snow.
"Step on it!" She screams at the petite girl behind the wheel as she slides onto the leather passenger seat.
The two other girls that had waited anxiously in the van, one with silky black hair and the other with cappuccino skin, begin pelting her with questions and demanding answers. But even as all three girls' voices gain volume, she never removes her gaze the tinted window. She stares at the three boys that had just exited the bar and the anger in their eyes as the van screeches away from the curb.
The girl shudders and shakes her head to the fast coming questions. She couldn't even go out and do a small recon mission without being tailed or found. As her friends quiet down she says two small words that have a very large impact on the occupants of the van. Everything is silent except for the snow landing on the roof of the car or the windshield wipers rubbing back and forth on the glass when the girl quietly says,
"They're here."