Chapter 59

59 A Russian Search

I blocked it with my hand as blood began to trickle down my lip.

What in the world? Why?!

“You dirty fiend,” he said, as he clenched his hand into a fist and hit me again on my nose. I cried in pain, as blood began to flow out of my nose. “You stole my victory,” he said, as he looked at me in anger with tears forming in his eyes. “You stole my light, all that I worked for! You’re evil!” He hit me again and again as blood began to pour out of my nose, my lips were also bleeding, as I tried to stop him from hitting me any longer, but he seemed not to care about that at all as he kept punching me.

“W-w-w-what have I done to you?” I asked, trying to get some air into my lungs. I tried to get up, but he continued to keep punching me relentlessly.

“What have you done?” Malachi asked, as he gave a sinister chuckle. “You won, that’s what you did.”

I finally got up to my feet, as he gave a blow to my face so hard that my knees went out from under me as I fell back on the ground. “Don’t get up on me,” he hissed. “You may have beaten me in that contest, but you’d wish you hadn’t.”

I used some of the stairs to get up onto my feet, as I could feel blood pouring out of my face from my nose. I wiped it off, leaving some stains on my sleeve. “Every single time, I won, I was the best agent in the YMPA!” he shouted. “I worked hard to get the respect, but now that you came. Now I’ve lost many steps in my fame.”

“Why is this so personal?” I asked, but he didn’t answer. He just kept huffing, as he gave a punch to my face again, as my face began to go numb and then I felt the blood gush from my nose. I was tired, I was really tired of him punching me.

I threw in a punch, but apparently I used my Perk too much or something, because he flew back, hitting his head against the wall of the stairwell, before he fell down to the ground like a lifeless corpse.

.....

He groaned in pain, as he pushed himself up on his hands and knees. “You fool,” he said with a rumble in his voice. Fear choked against my throat and terror rushed through my veins. I didn’t know how to fight this man who was now standing up slowly with a menacing glare, looking as if he wanted to kill me at any given time.

“You know what,” he said. “You clearly don’t play any games. Fine, but you’re gonna get a lot worse later.” He walked away slowly down the stairs and then vanished out of my sight as he went downstairs to the lower level where there were all those other students flooding the hall.

I took a deep breath, then wiped the blood off of my face and tried to clean the blood off of my clothes with my shirt and handkerchief.

It was the next day, the day where we’d start the actual mission. Before we went home, the group including Nichelle, talked with each other for a little bit, while we were all gathered together outside of the academy. She wasn’t a bad one, but she definitely had an attitude, as if she was better than everyone else at this school. We tried a bit of some training and she almost beat September, but then she got tired and couldn’t even stand up anymore, while September could still go on with another round and ended up winning in the end.

I’m pretty sure she was salty about that.

But we could clearly see she really was a fan of Malachi, even though he lost the WAC match in the first place. So his whole rant about him being at the bottom of the barrel seemed a bit dramatic now.

We met in Mr. Drails’s office, where everyone was waiting for him to come in. I’m not sure why he wasn’t there in the first place, but eventually he came in and sat at his desk, before he looked at all of us.

“Sorry, I was just filing for the mission’s name,” he said, as he rubbed his head.

Malachi sighed as he looked at him, as if he were completely exasperated with him. “Operation Marcello, how does that sound?” Mr. Drails asked, as we responded with a shrug. “Alright, so Malachi and Connor, you’ll be searching for the Soothing Cafe,” Mr. Drails explained, as we all nodded in agreement. “Nikki and September go look for him at the cafe by the park,” he ordered, as we all nodded again.

Mr. Drails looked at Nichelle, as she sighed and looked back at him. “You and Tisiah will look at Basake’s Cafe alright?” Mr. Drails said. “No complaints.”

Nichelle sighed, but nodded her head in agreement anyways as Mr. Drails looked back at us all again. “Alright, everyone ready?” he asked, and everyone nodded again in response. “Alright then,” Mr. Drails said and then stood up to his feet and walked out of his office. “What the,” I stammered in confusion.

“Why did he leave?” Tisiah asked, scratching his head.

And right at that moment, six portals sunk right under us, teleporting us to our areas. I felt myself hit the ground, as if it were a fall of a thousand feet at least. It was extremely painful and I could see my whole body go into spasms. I groaned as I got up onto my feet, seeing Malachi up onto his feet as if nothing had happened at all.

“Well, that was painful,” he said, looking down at me in amusement as I groaned in pain again from my fall and injuries from earlier that night when I got punched by him.

“You just got up in less than a second,” I said, as I got up to my feet. “Didn’t seem painful to you.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised,” he said. We were in a busy street, with people everywhere around us as if they were watching us from afar. “Well this is uncomfortable,” I complained, as he laughed at me with his arms folded behind his head.

I looked around us again and I could see the Soothing Café over there where Malachi was looking towards it with anticipation.

“Should we get going?” I asked.

Malachi sighed and shook his head in disappointment before looking at me. “Scout the area first,” he said, shaking his head as if he were disappointed in me once again.

I sighed in response and walked over to the cafe with my hands on my waist and just looked around. Cars were moving through streets, people were walking around, some of them were even holding drinks in their hands as they walked along with their friends or lovers. There was a roundabout in the middle of the road, cars were moving around it as they passed through it and stopped at the stoplights nearby.

I took a close look at the people though, trying to see if they had any weapons on them, but I didn’t notice anything dangerous from them as I turned around to see Malachi doing the same thing as I was doing. “See anything?” I asked, as he shook his head. He shrugged his shoulders as he gave me a quick nod in response as he looked at me with a smirk on his lips. “You know, I’d expect more effort from you,” he said, as he put his hands behind his head again.

I looked around again but couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary, so I started to walk along the street. But that was harder than anticipated, because there were so many people walking around and cars passing by so quickly it made it difficult to walk without bumping into anyone.

“Careful now!” Malachi yelled. “I’m not trying to have you die here.”

I was trying to cross the road when I heard someone honk a car’s horn in the distance, causing me to leap out of the way as I fell down on my backside.

Walking in Russia is terrible, and I mean terrible. I finally found a small alleyway where there were no people passing by and I walked down it quietly trying to keep myself from being noticed by anyone else.

I finally came out onto the street where there was no traffic or people nearby and I started to walk slowly, looking around and trying to find anything suspicious. And then it happened again, another car honked at me as I was about to walk past it.

“Sorry!” I shouted, moving back. But something was suspicious about that car. It was black, sleek, and it looked expensive. The windows were tinted and you couldn’t see inside of it from the outside. All of a sudden, it turned into an alleyway. I had to follow it and see what it was doing. I had to.

Preview:

I slowly followed them through the alleyway, where they stopped for some reason and I watched the black car pull away and turn right onto the street where there were cars moving along slowly. I tried not to be in any of the mirrors, but they were so small that it was impossible to hide from them, so I walked as fast as I could in hopes of staying hidden.

They began to pass the roundabout, and there was a red van waiting for them at the roundabout as they stopped for it to pass by, but suddenly another black car pulled up. Soon about three more joined them and then they turned left into an alleyway with another car waiting for them at the roundabout to pass by them. Soon enough, they began to move to the right of the street, towards a private road leading to the main road of the city, where there was a lot of traffic with cars and pedestrians alike.

I’m positive I’m miles away from Malachi right now and there’s no way he’ll find me out here. I need to call him about it, and tell him about what I’m doing.