On the Side-Lines

-Daliah-

Eccentric music floats in and out of earshot, as evening gowns twirl and flutter with the equally rich women wearing them.

Or so I imagine the scene to play out, as I creep around the empty library.

Madame Lucia, esteemed member of the monarchy, grand hostess, and self-proclaimed mother of seven - although no one has ever seen any of her children - is responsible for just about every other party.

And also every other political issue.

It’s a fact that majority of the people attending her parties are actually out for her head.

By all means, Madame Lucia does deserve to be assassinated, but my business is to frame, not maim.

I flit through binders of documents, laminated papers making obscene noises as my fingers flip them over.

Finding nothing worth noting but the tax fraud accounts she was already accused of, I move to the back of the library, spinning myself to the sound of the music from below.

With a hard bam I hit my foot on a stray table.

Keeling over in ungodly amounts of pain, I notice a metal box with a rusted lock simply hanging out under the table.

“Don’t mind if I do,” I say to myself, crouching down to examine the safe.

-Malak-

So, I’m extremely high.

Collecting information at this party turned into snorting three lines to collect information, which turned into snorting five more for personal pleasure, which turned into….this.

I did snatch a handful of IDs, papers, receipts, and whatever else people had on them that I thought was of monetary value.

I also have a memory bank full of information collected.

But of course, this bank is locked behind my hazy headache and now-itchy eyes.

I lay slumped in the vacant corner of the vast hallway, leaving my thick hair over my face to protect me from the exaggerated luminescence of three towering diamond-clad chandeliers.

The ceilings are obscenely high, making way for some godly twenty-seven foot columns that branch into the floor like trees and their roots.

I jolt up, frantically brushing the hair out of my face as I catch a glance of a figure running into a neighbouring room.

The only two brain cells left in my head decide as a council to do a little extra work tonight.

-Daliah-

The safe held a good amount of usefully needed information, so I’m taking my leave.

I tug at the edges of my velvet suit as the door, with its autumn chills, comes into view.

A numbing pain suddenly grabs onto my left leg.

I cripple over onto the floor, the numbness climbing up my dress pants and sitting in my left arm.

Panic hits me.

My eyes flit around the room, seeing a blurry figure come towards my crippled body.

I can’t feel my left side. Or see out of my left eye. Or seem to hear.

I try aggressively flopping over so I can reach my gun on the side I’m lying on, but all is hopeless as the figure steps on my only good arm.

They hold my head up by the hair, as they say jumbled words I don’t understand.

Her dangling golden earring swings dangerously close to my one good eye, as she tilts my face left and right.

I let her, as I think of a way to escape.

I let my head drop forward, like I’ve given up, then aggressively flip my head backwards, hitting her chin, then flip it forwards once more, headbutting her bloody in the forehead.

Her eyes roll back as she falls back onto the red carpets.

Splayed on the ground, her hair is a wild, deep brown, matching her skin and eyes and golden dress, like a lioness of sorts.

I feel the numbness begin to retreat, a pretty good feeling of my leg returning and a vague essence of my arm and face.

On my way out, I grab the stranger with me.

Mission frame not maim seems to have attracted other organizations’ attention anyways.