Ley walked briskly along the hot pavement in the middle of a 38 °C afternoon which she absolutely disliked but she's on a tight schedule today so without any choice she braved the hot weather. She can feel her day going downhill fast without any signs of improving and for some reason her eye keep twitching which was giving her a really bad feeling.
She entered a busy coffee shop and strode over a table where a girl in ponytail is fiddling with her phone. Busy is good. People would be too preoccupied with their own stuff to mind them.
"Hey Siri, how's my favorite person?" Ley said while sitting on a chair in front of her.
"You tell that to everybody," Siri scoffed and rolled her eyes at me.
She sipped the coffee Siri ordered for her and choked.
"Is this even coffee? It's too sweet," she reached for the water and drank it.
"I need sugar for my brain," Siri said in a 'duh' tone.
"You're not the one drinking it," She complained exasperatedly.
"Oh yeah, you're right. I forgot," Siri replied with a deadpan expression.
Ley sighed feeling exhausted already from dealing with Siri.
"Here's the file you need." She reached for the envelope Siri passed over and looked at the papers inside.
"Oohh! He's a hottie. The face really helps with bodyguard missions," she exclaimed while winking at the girl. "Landon Ferreira built a conglomerate company from nothing in just 3 years. I can see why he'd be thought as the Beast King. He certainly looks capable."
"Why did you have to get his information from me? Don't you know him?" Siri asked while lazily stirring her coffee.
"Nah, I don't know him. He must be a lone shifter before and joined when I wasn't there anymore," she shrugged.
"I just feel that it's weird that some random shifter can be suspected as the Beast King. Don't shifters believe that saying 'Might is right'?"
"You've got a point but you forgot that shifters operate in secrecy so the chain of command just operate in the shadows and doesn't interfere unless it threatens their so-called secrecy. That's why if someone wants to challenge the current Beast King, they should discover who it is first and usually the next in line is chosen by the Beast King himself if not defeated," she explained.
"I don't see how they'll establish their power when they can't even be seen."
"Shifters are very straight-forward people. They approve and revel in power demonstrations A LOT but you see troublemakers are very few in shifters because they are afraid of the Beast King. Problematic persons just vanish overnight and that scares the others and no one knows who the watchmen are except themselves."
"And you're involving yourself in this stuff again?" Siri raised her eyebrows like she can't believe Ley's doing something stupid.
Ley let out a sigh. "I don't really want to do this bothersome stuff too but my dad wants me to come home and get married to his chosen heir."
Siri stared at her while silence stretched on.
"What?" she asked finding Siri's reaction to be lacking.
"Oh. I thought it was a joke, so I was waiting for the punchline."
Ley brought her palms to her forehead, "I wished it was a joke too but he's uncharacteristically insistent this time."
"Did you tell your mom?"
"I did the first chance I got but it was no use," she recalled their conversation early this morning.
(Hey honey, I tried telling your dad to leave it alone but I couldn't even talk to him. All I get are voice mails and busy tones. He's definitely hiding from me. How about temporarily laying low? I'll give him a piece of my mind once I get a hold of him.)
"You're Dad's definitely up to something. I can't believe he's hiding when he's usually so scared of your mom.
"He's acting really strange right now so I'll just temporarily disappear from his radar right now and ignore him."
"Of all the jobs, why did you pick this job? This job stinks of strangeness," Siri wrinkled her nose in confusion.
"The world's full of strange things. I'm the greatest example. Even if this stinks like a fish, I'll still have to take it since it fits my conditions. I'll just have to imitate Landon's secretary and prevent him from dying. Easy peasy," she assuredly said.
"Imitating? You'll transform into his secretary? You can do that?" Siri exclaimed.
"No not transform more like a very realistic illusion which can at least fool their shifter senses. I don't have the right magic for what you're thinking besides that's hard to maintain and impractical," she denied.
"Ohhh . . . " Siri said disappointedly that she almost felt sorry for her.
She chuckled and a glare was sent her way.
"I still feel that this is a bad idea since you mostly work with humans anyway not shifters."
"Don't worry. I do that mostly because I don't like bumping into them," she placated Siri.
Siri handed her another envelope and she immediately checked it. She scanned all the details regarding the identity of the secretary which she'll be temporarily using during the job. She has to memorize everything about her so that she won't slip up during the operation.
"You know what's interesting about the secretary?" Siri's voice cut through her memorization. She glanced up and saw her smirking.
"What?"
"She actually lives near the cafe so you'll still be near the others."
"That's pretty convenient then. I won't have to go back and forth between her house and mine,"
"When do you plan to make a move?" Siri inquired.
"Probably later and then I'll start work tomorrow so I got to finalize things on my end too," she said while making plans.
Siri sighed making it known again that she doesn't agree with her plan.
"It's going to be fine. I'm just going there to be an anonymous bodyguard and I won't voluntarily cause trouble," she promised.
Siri looked at her while shaking her head clearly not believing her.
***
Gravel crunched beneath her feet while Roma walked on home through her usual route. She stepped into a dim alley and heard footsteps behind her. It didn't bother her and just continued on her way as the area is known for its safety. A low humming sound filled the quiet surroundings coloring the air with unearthly quality. She felt all of her attention centered on that strange melody and she struggled to hear more. Abruptly, it stopped and she turned around immediately to find the source. She wanted to hear more. She desperately needed to hear more. She walked towards the direction of the footsteps she's hearing.
The footsteps stopped and she heard a lilting voice rang out, "Roma."
She felt drawn towards the voice looking all over for it until she saw a lady standing under the dim lamp she passed by before. Platinum blonde hair framed her blurry face but she seemed to see red eyes staring at her. She heard that haunting melody again and she fell into a trance as she looked into those eyes.
She saw the lady smiled and began to speak but her ears couldn't seem to hear anything aside from the humming. She felt herself nodding along to whatever that person's saying without any resistance. The lady then started to walk and she unhesitatingly followed her. All she wanted was to hear that music playing by her ears.