Crossfire

10

I never thought I would work at Pri. Even the people who work there are rich, and my family wasn’t.

I filled my tray with the food for a minor table and entered the main hall. The noise was deafening as soon as I opened the door; it gave me a headache. But I couldn’t go hide in my room this time.

I left the food in the designated spots and hurriedly knocked on the window twice. Those knocks signalled Kirex to start his part.

As I walked back to the kitchen, I noticed Mother and Father staring at me, wide-eyed. Mother looked like death itself. Her eyes were bloodshot and her dress and hair were a mess. She had none of her usual makeup on, and Father was rubbing circles into her back. My eye twitched as I looked away.

There were still guards in the hall, but that was intentional. Kirex burst through the doors and set two of the tables on fire. Then he blew a raspberry at the Regal. The Regal was furious and ordered every guard in the room to chase him down. Kirex glanced at me and took off in a sprint down the road. I took a deep breath and went to get another tray of food.

When I got back to the kitchen, I went for the function room a few doors down and changed into my normal clothes again. I used a nearby bottle of ketchup and dumped it down my shirt. Then I forced myself to fake cry and went sobbing to the head chef.

I rambled to him about how I cut myself on a jug and needed a hug. He looked at me like I had two heads and a tail. Of course he knew it was ketchup, but he must have assumed I was a spoilt child from one of the soldiers in the hall. I kept on crying until he finally gave in and hugged me for about a second.

Softie.

I sniffed and wiped my eyes as I went back to the function room to change into the uniform. I held the keys I took from the head chef's belt up to my face and admired them. They were quite pretty.

I hid my hair again and lifted a tray of drinks. After giving them out, I pretended to check for the guards and locked the front doors shut. I threw the keys out of the window and shut it too.

Everyone was too engrossed in conversation of ‘their victory' to care for what I was doing. I wasn’t really trying to hide what I was doing, either. Did they just not care for their safety?

After a while of going back and forth from the kitchen, taking orders and avoiding soldiers, I went into different function room with an open window.

Kirex's anaconda was sitting just below it, in a bush. I greeted her and lifted her up. There was no way I would be able to carry her for long with my short stature, so I just placed her down. She knew the plan anyways.

I walked to the door to go back to the kitchen, when my view was blocked.

"You look a little young to be serving, critter.”

I looked up in dread to see two soldiers smirking down at me. My breath shook as I tried to back away, but one grabbed my upper arm.

“Mind explaining who you are?”

I stayed silent, thinking of a way out. I did the only thing I could think of. I cried.

The soldiers froze and winced, looking at each other for help. I continued to force out sobs to distract them.

While they had a conversation using their eyes, I took the chance to kick the bigger one in his shin. He yelped and reached for me, but I ducked under his arm. I turned around to glare at them, wiping my fake tears from my eyes.

"Oh, you little shit-“

The one I kicked cried out in pain as Kirex's anaconda latched onto his upper leg. She wrapped around it and lightly squeezed. Nowhere near enough to actually harm him.

He shouted nonsense about how he was dying and his friend tried to pull the snake off of him. If he pulled her off and her teeth came out, the soldier could be in for a pretty bad infection.
I rushed off through random hallways to escape from them. The anaconda could handle herself.