No one noticed the girl sitting by herself near the door. No one noticed her watching the small group of friends carefully, observantly. And that was the just what she had wanted. She had gone to drastic measures to change her appearance, her hair was longer and black, and her eyes brown instead of the piercing blue. But then with her powers it had taken only minutes to do so.
She aimlessly flipped through the magazine in front of her, throwing casual glances towards the others. She knew she was risking exposure by being here, they could recognize her easily if they tried, they would wonder why she was looking this way and she would be exposed. But she had wanted to do this, to try and see how cautious and nervous they were.
Liz and Alex's death had shaken them. They were still trying to deal with it, forgetting their need to be careful of those around. She knew that had she done this only a month earlier she would have been caught. She was almost disappointed by their lack of security. Where once they made sure not to act too suspicious in a crowd, they were doing a poor job now.
Glancing over the magazine, she saw Kyle, Max and Isabel sitting in their regular booths. Kyle looked agitated and kept shooting furtive looks at Maria. Isabel and Max looked at Kyle oddly, wondering why he was acting so jumpy. But Maria was pointedly ignoring him as she sat next to Michel on stools, her yearbook spread lying scattered across the counter.
She briefly wondered why Kyle was acting so impatient and Maria was so pointedly ignoring him, but then she pushed it away. She had more important matters to deal with. Realizing that she was staring she quickly looked back down at her magazine. She didn't notice the man come and sit down next to her until she felt his presence once he was sitting. She looked up startled but then smirked at him.
"Making sure if I'm all right?" she asked.
The man looked casually at the menu, answering while still looking over it. "No, making sure you don't mess up." He replied. He looked up and caught her irritated look and he gave her his cold, contemptuous look. She looked away quickly, not daring to defy him.
"Just make sure the others do their job properly and I'll do mine just fine." She replied curtly.
He nodded, tossing away the menu and looking over her carefully. "You know how much this all depends on you." He told her finally. "They already trust you; you just have to use that to your own benefit."
"I know how the thing works, okay?" she snapped, irritated that he didn't think she could handle it.
"Just being careful." He said, smiling coldly at her. "I've failed once; I don't want to fail again."
"If you thought Nicholas was going to help you defeat them then you were really a fool Kivar." She replied with a scoff. "He was too direct."
She looked thoughtfully at the others, watching as Kyle said something to Maria which caused her to look up in alarm. She saw Maria drag Kyle into the back room and she smiled to herself. This was going to be easy. She turned back her attention to Kivar.
"We need to be subtle in our attempt. Break in gradually and then take them when they least expect it." She told him.
"Maybe you're right." Kivar relented. "But I'm not getting my hopes up yet."
She shrugged, not really bothered. "We'll know soon whether this works or not." She replied. "Now go, I need to do my work. Just make sure your men are ready when I want."
Kivar acknowledged this with a slight nod before getting up and casually walking away. She turned her attention back to the small group. She found her target walking away from the back room slowly, as if in a daze. She got up and picked up her glass of alien smoothie and began to walk causally in his direction. It was time she moved in.
TBC….
