Day 4, Paris trip:
Morning, after breakfast, everyone had been taken to the venue where the Charity banquet was supposed to be held.
The venue wasn't much but a vast clearing where small stores were present. Large trees and many chairs and tables were kept by alternate trees. No proper arrangement except for the stores because they were already built. Nothing welcoming in short.
" What the..." Mel got off the bus. She expected some nice sight, arranged things, totally everything in place at least something else, not this!
" Do I have a choice to go back to the resort?" she asked Alex who was right behind her.
Alex rolled her eyes at her and pulled Mel along.
....
The group had attained the second largest store available there, as they had planned for three counters, for serving food. As it was the last day, they didn't plan to keep it from anyone. Most importantly they didn't care if there were imposters.
" Ok, great place! " Lucas clapped cheerily, trying to cheer Mel up. She sat on one of the counters of the empty store. " Let's get on with cleaning." he added, leaning beside the counter.
" If it's so great, why don't you get your a*s up and get cleaning?" she snapped and went back to sulking!
Brenden and Alex seemed to be speaking something serious and our love birds were indulged in flirting and cleaning- both together or whatever...
' Never mind, we're single dogs! We certainly won't understand.'
....
Meanwhile,
" So, what happened to my information? " Alex asked as he had promised her for it.
" Well, it quite hard. It'll take time to understand. So, I want you to be open minded. Ok?" he explained to her, politely observing her, ' Wow, she's good at hiding her emotions. It's no wonder we clash.' he thought amused.
While he was observing her, he was being observed by her too. ' Shit, he's good at hiding his emotions. A*shole. Well, lets see what 'information' he's got. '
" Go on, I'm not a fragile item. " she encouraged, snorting at him.
" Well then. This thing is not for the weak hearted, you see." he retorted at her audacity to snort at him! " I wouldn't want a person to have a heart attack. "
" Oh sure, at least I'm not a fuk*n lucky bastard who won the lottery to become rich over night. " she screamed at him, losing her cool.
He smirked his usual Dark prince smirk and spoke real slow,
" In one way we're similar you see, both of us don't know of our origins. Well, I'm way better at least I know one. " Saying that he turned on to his heels and left.
Alex's usual face turned ashen , 'What does he mean by that? What origins? What the fu*k! Does he even speak normally??? '
Ha! look at who is speaking of normalcy!
....
The day passed by cleaning every nook and corner of the store.
Hayden and Steph were already done with the cleaning and Brenden and Alex worked together even with their stupid conflict from earlier. While, Lucas and Mel were sitting in the store drinking sodas and usually went to get the delivered goods and items or Lucas would clean the counters as Mel supervised.
" Hey, couldn't you give a hand instead of just ordering me around?" Lucas snapped at Mel. She staggered her steps and looked at him with a pouty face.
" Why, why brother did you scold me? " she fake sobbed. " I...I thought..." * sob * in between her performance Alex entered.
" Don't fall for her cute antiques, she does this all the time! Kick her out while you work, she's useless in that anyways. Well with her off, lets get this counter cleaned up."
The store had two counters, one was occupied by Steph and Hayden for the desert section and the other was shared for food and refreshment drinks. Lucas and Mel would handle the counter when Brenden and Alex cook and they could take turns as per the requirements.
" humph.." Mel harrumphed and left them alone. It wasn't like she was of any use there.
....
It was almost 3 pm and most of them had left the venue to have their lunch, outside in restaurants or back to the resort. Only a few remained, hence it was quite calm and silent.
As she usually did, Mel didn't like 'this' calm, her instincts told her something's going to happen and she didn't like the gut feeling.
She turned to their store and saw that Brenden was missing. She found it weird and started to search for him.
'Where the hell is he? What is he up to? ' she frowned at her own thoughts and assumption but she couldn't help but think in that way.
....
A boy sat on the French window of an abandoned store in the same venue. He stared at the small single-roomed store.
It had nothing but a small lighter and some amount of volatile liquid on a table. The liquid could burn down the entire building in mere seconds and vanish without a trace of evidence of what that substance was, which had burned it down. Later, they could only assume the fire, to an accident.
The boy smirked at the thought of destruction of this store, destruction of life .... his life.
He stood up and poured the liquid in the corners of the store. He stared at the lighter in his hand and then frowned, ' Shit, what about the body?
' Well, I think she will take care of it. '
Then, he lit one corner. The fire blazed like a starved animal, devouring anything beside it.
He flinched at the radiated heat and went to sit back on the window when a cat meowed...
' What the... '
" Damn cat! "
....
Mel searched around and got lost as usual,
' Me getting lost all the time is getting out of control now!!! ' she frowned, reprimanding herself.
' Well, when was anything ever under your control? ' her subconscious sneered.
After lurching around for sometime, she saw some smoke rising from some where. Suddenly, a cat meowed. Seeing the smoke and the cat's call, she assumed that the cat had got itself stuck in the fire and ran towards the building to help it.
Going to the spot she saw that the fire had only started at one corner of the building. So, she encouraged herself and bravely entered the store to save the cat. How brave!!!
After entering she couldn't see anything due to the smoke, never in her life did she think that a fire accident would have so much smoke. Why didn't they show this in the movies or the books that she read???
But she couldn't argue as they were only fictional characters, they could fall into fire, ocean or even from an cliff and return unscathed!!! But she was only a human, a useless one in that!!!
* Wu... Wu... *
She felt like she was about to choke as she had breathed in a lot of smoke from the fire. She coughed dryly as she inhaled the smoke and got a bit dizzy, her vision blurred. Suddenly she felt a tug at her arm and she fell into someone's embrace.
He looked a lot good, she couldn't help but compare it with the normal looking Brenden. If not for that huge scar on the left eye running from above his eye to the start of check bone, she would have vouched for him to be an angel. But yet, she had the feeling that he would protect her.
' Why does she have this feeling all the time? It's so bitchy!!! '
' Sh*t I should top thinking like that, umm.. yeah! ' she thought, ' Well, let me let this nice guy to take me out first. '
' What nice? You don't even know who he is!!! You're still in the stranger's arms and you have no clue on what's gonna happen next. Wake the hell up!!! ' her sub-conscious yelled at her.
She struggled to move out of his arms when he spoke, " Don't move, you're weak from the smoke. I'll get you out first. " saying that in his warm husky voice, he picked her plump body and walked out.
" Fu*k, don't do that I'm a bit heavy." She said embarrassedly .
He chuckled at her cute antiques," Don't worry, you're no weight at all. I can even carry you in my single hand. " He shrugged placing her down, outside the store.
" Thank you, Mr.Terror. " she said smiling at him gratefully.
" No problem. You see, I'm just too helpful and kind. I can't stand people who need help. " he said shrugging nonchalantly - he literally couldn't stand them.
His half face was now covered with a creepy mask all of a sudden. ' Where the hell did that come from? Was it there from the start? Might be...'
She snorted, " Accepted that you saved me, but your seriously a huge narcissist aren't you?"
He shook his head in denial and gave her a two fingered salute as a gesture of good bye," Until next time. " and walked apart and stopped in his tracks and turned around," By the way, I like the way you address me." saying that he vanished into the smoke which now grew more than earlier.
Mel chuckled and shook her head in disbelief.
....
Returning back she could see that Brenden was arranging the vessels and spices for tomorrow.
' Wait, wasn't he supposed to be lost? ' She thought and frowned. ' Never mind. '
The rest of the day passed by as they arranged the things for the banquet the next day. They had borrowed quite a few items from the canteen in the resort.
A few mini coolers, a few emergency stoves, vessels...etc...etc...
After everything was over they sighed in relief together and sat down to take some rest.
" What a load of work! " Lucas sighed and others nodded.
" Hey, you have no rights to nod along, what did you do to nod your head? " Lucas reprimanded as he saw Mel nod along.
She glared at him, comically. " What? half the time you were ordering me around and the other half you spent by getting lost. " he reasoned.
" Humph..." She harrumphed, and turned to Brenden , " Where did you go at around 3 pm? " she asked suspiciously.
" Just to bring some more spice. Why? " he questioned her in return. She shook her head indicating that it was nothing and turned quite.
Suddenly Lucas' and Brenden's phone rang at the same instant. * RING...*
Both eyed each other as they saw the caller ID.
Lucas' eyes widened while Brenden's filled with excitement...
' It's her!!! '