Three girls stood at the front door while giving their ID"s to the security guard. He quickly gave them a look over with an experienced eye before nodding. Although the girls were only 18, the ID"s they had were fake and said they were all 21. The only difference between them was the year they were born so even the birthday was the same. Anthony, who was just normally watching over the crowd, glance at them briefly and then turned his attention to others. With the long line of people wanting to get in, there was always someone he needed to look at. He was an experience hand at this and could tell a lot by how people reacted when he looked at them. He might have suspected the girls were underage, but how many times had he seen people do this over the years. He pretty much felt it was more of a right of pa.s.sage than anything else. Besides, if things went wrong, it was on them for the fake ID"s. Each girl received a bracelet and a stamp before going inside.The three girls were rather excited since they had all turned 18 recently and hadn"t had a chance to go to a club yet. They had promised to go together once all of them turned 18. The oldest, Rachel, had already graduated but was working at a local town office for an internship while applying to colleges, she was also the one who had gotten them the altered licenses. The youngest, Ashley, had just turned 18 a few weeks ago which meant that all of them were keeping their promise.
"This is great!"
"I know, right?"
"Honestly. Of all the places we could have gone tonight, why here?" The middle girl asked sounding slightly annoyed. It wasn"t that she didn"t want to go, but this place was huge looking and actually looked pretty run down from the outside. She would have been much happier going to someplace a bit smaller.
"Oh come on Leona, it"s not like your getting any younger. You haven"t had a boyfriend in how long and you keep ignoring Brian for G.o.d knows what reason." Ashley commented. She was something of a flirt which caused her to get a bad reputation despite having only been with two guys up until now. That said, she was currently single and wanted to have a fun time tonight.
"She"s right. Once you girls graduate we can all head off to college, so why waste the time to enjoy ourselves right now?" Rachel added on while dragging Leona through the door. Leona could only sigh and follow them. She already told them she didn"t like Brian and that he wasn"t a good person, but they thought she was just being prude. At the same time, she never mentioned anything about her sudden thing with Laz, mostly because there was no telling what it even was. Maybe there was something there and maybe there wasn"t. He was a guy with many secrets and she just didn"t know how involved she wanted to be.
As the girls walked into the club, they couldn"t help but feel the vibe of the place get to them. It was like an energy took hold and made them want to dance. But first they had to do something else they promised themselves.
"Alright. Drinks, let"s go." Rachel said, leading the group while Ashley dragged Leona. After they all picked something out from the list that looked large and festive, they quickly grabbed one of the standing tables with tall stools and took some time to drink while taking in everything. From the perspective of a first time club goer, they obviously eyes the hanging cages, the crazy light show and even the upstairs area.
"What"s that?" Ashley asked, pointing to the stairs that had guards in front of it.
"VIP area. You either have to be someone really well known or be invited," Rachel explained between sips. Both she and Ashley had been taking big gulps of the large gla.s.ses since they tasted yummy without a heavy alcohol flavor. Had they ever been clubbing before, they would have known that the point of those drinks was to taste good while still having as many as 4 shots worth of something in them. Because of this lack of knowledge, they drank them down rather fast and went to get more.
Leona, watching her friends enjoy themselves, felt rather out of place. Had this been over a year ago, she probably would have been acting just like them. But now with things working out as they were, she felt very reluctant to let go.
Just as the girls made it to the bar, a waitress came over to collect the empty gla.s.ses. Had the girls waited, she would have been more than happy to get the drinks for them, but they were in a hurry. The waitress just smiled at Leona and asked if they were done with the empty gla.s.ses to which Leona responded yes. Flashing her a beautiful smile, the waitress quickly collected them and was about to walk away when she noticed Leona"s rather downcast look.
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"What"s wrong little sister? You"re probably the only one in here who looks like she would rather be anywhere else," the waitress in the tight, black, reflective dress said.
"Oh? Uh. I don"t know. I"m just... not in the mood... I guess..." Leona responded back.
"Is it about a guy?" The waitress set her tray down and sat at the nearby stool, looking at Leona.
"Uh... well... wait. Who are you?" Leona asked, finally starting to pay attention. The girls were still waiting in line so Leona focused her attention on this somewhat noisy waitress.
"Name"s Ruby, what"s yours?" Ruby asked, smiling warmly. Ruby was a rather observant person and this young lady in front of her was obviously much stronger than anyone else she had seen so far tonight. The only reason she couldn"t confirm it for sure was because she was wearing red jade and the thought the young girl in the silver sparkly dress was also wearing it. Because of that, Ruby became a bit interested in her.
"Leona," Leona replied, noticing the gentle smile on Ruby"s face. She didn"t get a bad vibe from this girl, more like an interested one, so she didn"t put her icy guard up.
"Beautiful name. So, a guy, right?" Ruby asked while leaning in closer, but not too close.
"Kinda..." Leona didn"t know how to answer since it was and it wasn"t.
"Well. Good news than. You"ve basically got an entire sea of guys here just waiting to cheer you up," Ruby said, while pointing out a few who were looking in their direction.
"That"s... I"m not. We"re not..." Leona was stumbling, trying to think of how to explain it with Ruby b.u.t.ted in again.
"It"s fine. Let me guess. You"re hesitating on the relationship and decided that getting a night out would be a good distraction. But that doesn"t mean you actually want to meet someone here, right?" Ruby said, nodding her head while looking serious.
"Yes... actually. Exactly right!" Leona agreed. That summed up why she was here perfectly.
"Hehe, thought so. Well, then let"s go." Ruby got up and waved over to one of the other waitresses before grabbing Leona"s hand.
"Go?" Leona asked.
"Go dance. You don"t want some guy bothering you, so how about just dancing a bit with me?" Ruby laughed as she pulled Leona towards the dance floor.
"But, my friends. And aren"t you working?" Leona said, following her all the same.
"Your friends will be find. Besides, if they finish another one of those over sized margaritas, I"m not sure they will be able to stand up, much less dance. There"s a reason those things are almost $20 a piece," Ruby laughed as they got to the floor.
"Besides, my primary job is to make sure everyone is having a good time," Ruby added on as she took the lead, sliding behind Leona while putting her hands on her hips and shaking her a.s.s. Ruby was being serious, it was just that most of the girls would do the jobs that could earn the most tips and randomly dancing with another girl wasn"t usually one of them. Ruby was different since she wasn"t doing this job for money, so she could afford to slack and have a good time. Leona, who had been a bit stiff, started to relax a little while on the dance floor with Ruby. If anything, she didn"t feel like the girl meant her any harm and every time a few guys tried to get close, Ruby would lead Leona in a way that moved them both out of the way while the guys ended up positioned like they were dancing with each other. Leona couldn"t help but laugh her a.s.s off the couple of times it happened.
She was finally relaxing and enjoying herself.
...
While the girls were dancing downstairs on the dance floor, Laz was actually sitting upstairs with Leo, talking to two men in suits who looked entirely out of place in the club.
"Mr. Hearn..."
"I"ve said before that what you offer makes no difference."
"I don"t believe you understand the danger that these freaks poise to you and your business Mr. Hearn."
"You"re right. I don"t. As far as I"ve been told, this disease isn"t fatal, isn"t contagious and the people who have it are mostly normal."
"That is just in the general sense. There are some truly terrifying ones among them that could cause severe damage to your establishment, harm to your customers and employees, and might even cause a disaster that forces you to close." The older of the two men argued with Leo while the younger one seemed to just be there for no reason.
"Gentlemen. I understand your position. But unless the government orders me to start checking all of my patrons, then I"m not going to do this no matter how much money you want to offer me per infected caught. I"m not turning my club into some kind of lobster trap." Leo was starting to get p.i.s.sed. These men had shown up here tonight and randomly started scanning people in line not to long ago. They were immediately approached and asked to leave when they suggested that they had a government business for Leo and wished to see if he had a free moment. Leo, who loved doing business in this kind of environment, allowed them to come up to the VIP section for a talk. Laz was also in the area and decided to sit in on the conversation if for no other reason than to expand his horizons. He was more glad than ever that he did.
They started off the conversation by mentioning that the government was ordering that certain businesses had to start testing their customers for the infection. They then flashed their badges for a branch that neither Leo nor Laz had heard of. Max, who had a very detailed knowledge base of government agencies also failed to recognize where they were from via the com link he was listening in on. Despite that, he advised Leo to listen as the men explained they were a newly formed agency that had just began around a year ago. Max knew that it wasn"t impossible that what they said was true since that was how the department of homeland security had been formed, causing Leo to take the two men seriously.
They explained what they wanted Leo to comply with and informed him that he would also be paid well for his help even though it was required by law. Laz, who had been listening in, was able to sense that there were many holes in the story as the man was lying at times. Since Laz had his spiritual sense, he was able to monitor things like heart rate and body temperature, allowing him to get a general feel of when people were making stuff up. So when the older of the two mentioned that it was required by law, Laz interjected into the conversation without being asked.
"That"s a lie," Laz said very plainly.
"And who might you be?" The young man finally spoke up and asked.
"My new head of security. He might look young, but he is skilled in ways you can"t imagine. If he"s saying your lying, You"re lying. That means you can leave now." Leo tried to kick the two of them out, but the older suit shot a quick glance at the younger suit who pointed the gun like sensor straight at Laz"s head. Incidentally, the test show negative, causing both men to relax.
"And why do you think we are lying young man?" The older gentleman asked.
"Anyone who has done this for while knows how to give a human lie detector test. And it"s quite clear that you were making up a lot of your story. Like Boss Leo said, if you"ve got nothing else, leave." Laz was rather forceful, although the reason for it was unknown to all except him. Laz knew he wouldn"t feel right having to scan people and search for other"s like him only to turn them over to the government. Hence why, when this was suggested, Laz felt a bit of anger towards the two of them and wanted them gone as well.
Having lost the dignity of a government agent, they finally broke down and explained the whole story. Although the new department was real, it was basically just founded and wasn"t allowed to reveal itself, much less order people to be captured like some sort of fugitive. Because of this, Leo and Laz found that they were just trying to buy lab samples and ship them off for far more money than they were offering others. The reason for this was because they wanted to show some progress before getting the green light to keep going, allowing them the full power that would come from representing the government. Leo still wanted nothing to do with it.
Although a bit crestfallen, the two men left Leo a card in case he changed his mind. Leo and Laz talked a bit about it for a while, before Laz bid Leo goodbye and started making his way out of the lounge area to check out the dance floor.
Just as Laz had almost reached the stairs, he looked out over the crowd of people when something caught his eye.
"Leona... She"s here? And with Ruby...? Laz"s brain almost exploded when he saw the two of them dancing together. He now knew that one way or another, things were going to get pretty complicated...