Hardly A Hero [REWRITTEN ON NEW ACCOUNT]

Chapter 4: The Board of Bad News

Ben and I had planned on meeting up the following day at the same spot. While I spent the rest of the afternoon keeping an ear out for any interesting robberies I could take part in, (and by take part, I mean hand over the criminals and take most of the money for myself) I decided to look up the only safe place I could think of to train Ben.

The original HQ.

As I punched in the location, I saw that it was still completely out of use.

"Ms. O'Connolly, Jazmine will be arriving in 20 minutes."

I looked down at my watch.

"Crap." I muttered to myself, minimizing the tabs immediately and making a mental note to return to it later.

It was a Girls Night and nothing got in the way of that.

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"I'm glad you brought your money because you're going to need it!" Jazmine sang, making a direct sprint down the hill towards the vibrant artificial lights and game music that could get stuck in your head for hours.

Not that far in front of us stood the town's most famous tourist attraction spot; the arcade.

Jazmine snatched my hand and I pressed my purse to my side in fear that the contents would fall out in the likely chance I went tumbling down the hill.

"I'm so excited!" She beamed at me.

I couldn't tell...

It wasn't long before we were slotting in coins for those cheesy dance games and making crazy facial expressions in the photo booth.

As we exited the booth, laughing manically at the strip of photos, I spotted a familiar face moving closer and closer.

"Rose, look who it is." Jazmine cooed next to me, raising her eyebrows suggestively.

"Uh, yeah, about that. I need to tell you something."

"Let's have some fun! Serious stuff later." She shot back.

Ben was accompanied by his usual posse of good-looking friends and they were strolling through the arcade as if they owned it. Of course, they made a direct bee-line to Zombie Blaster 360.

I felt a little self-conscious near him. Not that I was spectacularly under-dressed or anything but I naturally shifted towards the tomboyish type of clothes than anything dressy. I was currently rocking an outfit of light skinny jeans, my burgundy vans and a t-shirt with a little green alien in the top corner and a black rim around the neck and sleeves.

We walked past as Jazmine gave one of the boys a risky wink and headed towards my favorite, yet most disappointing game of all; the crane games.

I know, I know, those kind of games are rigged so you spend money and don't get anything, blah, blah, blah, but that didn't stop me from trying.

Jazmine shared the same passion and headed towards one of the adorable puppy ones at the end of the line. I, on the other hand, went straight for The Smurfs.

On the first attempt, the claw got hold of Clumsy Smurf and dropped him almost immediately. I sighed in frustration, but my bag was full of coins (curtesy of my latest robbery conquest) and I wasn't leaving without my Clumsy Smurf. On the second attempt, I got him closer to the prize drop, but was still unsuccessful. It would have been easy to use my Telk and get any toy I wanted, but I liked a challenge. I was about to shift the handle for the third attempt, when I felt a hand on my shoulder.