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Claire smiled biting her lower lip trying her best to keep the laughter from coming out, when she saw how Mallory's face looked down at her outstretched hand offering a high five left unreturned. "What are you doing?" mocked Claire.
"Hurry up, I'm going home." Mallory made a small complaining sound. "If not I'll go straight home." she challenged looking at each of the girls' faces in front of her.
"Just go home, you didn't bring a motorcycle. Please walk," Victoria cut in, she laughed lowly without letting Mallory's face out of her gaze.
Mallory wanted to curse herself in her heart cursing her stupidity when she heard Victoria's words, she just remembered that she came here together with William. "Alright, I'll ask Azrien for a ride." she said, turning around and walking towards the gathering room.
Claire was the first to react and almost lost her balance following Mallory's movement. The girl swept her gaze once she reached the gathering room to see one face after another relaxing, enjoying the light snacks and food that had been cooked earlier. Mallory raised both eyebrows when she found the face of the person she was looking for, approaching the man pulling on Azrien's hand who was sitting on the couch relaxing with his cell phone in his hand.
"Uh, Mallory? Why are you pulling my hand like this?" Azrien raised his eyebrows high in surprise at Mallory's sudden behavior.
"Take me home, or else lend me your bike. Tomorrow I'll have Dareen deliver your bike home," Mallory patted Azrien's shoulder lightly, puckering one of her eyelids and deliberately pouting her lips.
Azrien's attention changed from staring at Mallory's face, glancing behind Mallory's back where there were Claire, Odessa, and Aesira standing in a line by the hand signaling to him with both arms crossed. Azrien looked again at Mallory letting the girl's hand pat his shoulder. "How soon are you going home? You haven't eaten yet either, right?" Azrien stopped Mallory's hand from patting him, holding it on his shoulder.
Mallory stared at the hand Azrien was holding, saying nothing. A man with mid-length black hair who was sitting next to Azrien with a small plate in his hand straightened his back, feeling a little disturbed by their conversation but when he saw who was standing next to Azrien, then looked at the girls standing near the stairs he nodded once understanding what was going on.
"Just drop it off, Az. Don't you see Mallory's behavior has become strange? Mallory never openly asks people to drive her if you forget, this is usually her mood swing." Mattheo interrupted the conversation between them, his ever-sharp eyes falling on the people around him.
Azrien glanced briefly at Mattheo, he then nodded lowering Mallory's hand from his shoulder. "Okay, let's go. I'll take you home."
Azrien's words were greeted with a small applause from Mallory, her eyes shining under the lights showed clearly the dark blue color of her eyes sparkling wide. Azrien stood staring into those eyes as if he wanted to dive deep into the sea of mystery of the girl in front of him. He opened his mouth to say something but no words came out, like everything was locked up in his throat. He agreed with what Mattheo said about Mallory's mood swing.
Azrien stretched one arm out to reach Mallory's body in his embrace. Mallory automatically brings her body closer to Azrien's, her shoulders fitting snugly in the circle of the man's arm. Mattheo's eyes followed the direction in which Mallory and Azrien exited the headquarters gathering room towards the front door past many people. The three girls standing near the stairs sighed in disappointment that Azrien didn't listen to their request.
Mattheo laughed lightly as he witnessed firsthand how the girls' faces looked so sullen as if they had just lost the light of their lives. He called out to the three of them until all of them turned around, without saying anything just holding up his plate of food containing various snacks offering it to them. Victoria had just come out from the direction of the kitchen holding the plate of food with her, bringing herself to sit on the empty part of the sofa next to Mattheo that was previously occupied by Azrien. Claire let out a loud laugh at the girl's arrival, rushing over as quickly as possible to grab the contents of the food on Victoria's plate, although the girl did not react, but her hand was gently hit by Mattheo.
"Are you seriously going home this early?" Azrien held out Dareen's helmet to Mallory.
"I had some business with Marzio, he sent me a message saying the new weapons intake arrived."
The blond man didn't say anything to Mallory's explanation, he got on the bike and started the engine until it roared loudly as he pulled the throttle deep. Mallory climbed onto the sports bike after putting on Dareen's helmet, whose owner had just come out to see Mallory putting on her helmet while showing her thumb. The motorcycle's tires finally moved out of the base's yard and onto an urban asphalt road. Speeding through the suburban streets of Los Angeles where there were not too many people riding in traffic. The moon shone beautifully accompanying the ride while the wind blew gently making Azrien glance into the rearview mirror of his motorcycle with a smile.
"Llory, are you seriously dating Lorenzo?"
Mallory raised an eyebrow straightening her back as she heard the question very clearly, despite the sound of the wind filling the surroundings. "No, I never had any feelings for him." she replied bringing her mouth close to Azrien's shoulder. "It's just that this afternoon after school she happened to ask me to get together, and since she asked me directly I agreed. And when I got home from school, I told Marzio that I was going home with him, Marzio told me that Lorenzo was actually a member of Dalton."
Azrien saw the reflection of Mallory's eyes clearly visible in the glass of his motorcycle, he paused for a moment before refocusing on the road. "Yes, he is one of Dalton's members. But me and the others still don't know if he's an old member or not. The problem is that he is rarely seen among the Black Aoudra crowd during races,"
"You guys have known for a long time that he's a member of Black Aoudra?" asked Mallory again.
"We've known for a long time. But that's the thing, we can't find out more about him because he's pretty secretive about the other members, the one who's been in the spotlight lately is their captain Jonathan Caradine. You know him, right?"
Mallory gave a small nod even though she knew Azrien couldn't see her. "You know, he's the one who's said to be one of the Black Aoudra members from Canada, right?"
"Yups, because Jonathan is more famous than the others, the other members are more secretive, including Lorenzo." Azrien pulled the motorcycle's throttle even deeper when he saw the traffic light turn green ahead. "Actually, William and I have long felt that there was something wrong with Lorenzo, especially since I found out that you were out with him. Both of us are increasingly suspicious of Black Aoudra's ulterior motives."
Mallory stayed still for a while letting the wind hit her face, her eyes dropping to stare at the white lines of the road markers that were glowing away in seconds beneath her feet. "Fortunately, before I left with Lorenzo, Marzio asked me for the Chaopard. Maybe Marzio was already suspicious of Lorenzo, so he asked for the diamond,"
"So the Chaopard isn't with you now?"
"No, with Marzio now. That's why I want to go home early,"
Azrien stared once at his right rearview mirror dropping his attention to the twinkle in Mallory's eyes who was also looking there looking very far away like the girl herself was holding a lot of words inside her head. Azrien slowly reached his left hand back to grab Mallory's hand, pulling it gently guiding it around her waist. Mallory moved her face away from the glass hiding a faint streak on her face from behind Azrien's back, tightening her head to wrap her arms around Azrien's waist. And Azrien's motorcycle tightened the performance of its engine to increase the speed to quickly deliver the girl behind him home.
Mallory prepared to jump off the bike even as her housing block was just visible in the far corner of her vision. Azrien had to restrain his thighs from jumping before the bike's tires came to a complete stop. The motor reduced its speed smoothly. The girl stood upright with her balance on Azrien's shoulders and then rushed down to his door.
Her fingertips touched the surface of the metal doorknob but she suddenly paused, there was a warm feeling Mallory felt on the surface of her palm as if the object had just been held. Slowly she tried to turn it and then pushed the door which instantly opened wide without showing that the door had been locked. She silently looked at the living room of her own residence, turning her head momentarily to Azrien who was still sitting on his motorcycle in front of there.
"Marzio didn't lock the door? That's odd...," Mallory pushed the door open again, letting her eyes scan the house in front of her. "Marzio, where are you?" Her shout echoed off the walls.
"Warehouse down, Ry. Come see me!" Marzio's voice sounded as faint as if it were in the distance.
Mallory craned her neck forward behind the door to peer into another open door in a poorly lit corner of the house, Marzio's voice coming from that direction. The roar of Azrien's motorcycle engine distracted Mallory, as she turned to see the man preparing to turn his motorcycle. Azrien waved his hand once, after Mallory waved back he pulled the throttle of his motorcycle in speeding away leaving the rough sound of his engine echoing in the streets. Mallory gave a brief smile at Azrien's departure before going inside her house, locking some kind of lock on her door.
Shifting her body to step into the storeroom, passing through the dark descending stairs accompanied only by the illumination from the biased light of the room above, Mallory treaded each step so smoothly as if the dark stairs before her were nothing. Once down there, her eyes only caught the light from near the door Marzio opened, the man sitting there facing the wooden boxes scattered around and their foam contents scattered everywhere.
"You pack so many weapons, what is it?" Mallory stepped closer leaning her body against the wall.
Marzio glanced at his sister while holding a black object filled with bullets. "Our cousin, Wareen said that next week there will be a box of the latest model of submachine guns that will be deposited before being sent to the buyer, so I want to clean up the remaining weapons that the buyer didn't take and the defective ones, send them back to Warren." he replied flatly continuing to clean up the various levels of weapons that were scattered around arranging them neatly on the metal shelf behind the safe door.
Mallory sighed folding her arms across her chest, silently watching with no intention of helping at all as her brother passed in front of her several times going back and forth with the weapons one by one. But when he saw the traces of sweat droplets on his brother's temples, Mallory chuckled and he was moved to help Marzio's work of tidying up and holding out the weapons right in front of the safe door when his brother came out.
"Marzio, you really don't know what Lorenzo's position was in Black Aoudra?" she asked looking at Marzio's face next to her.
Marzio stopped his hands in the air, turned his face to look at his brother and shook his head slowly. "No idea. I've been monitoring Black Aoudra for a long time, and that Lorenzo is rarely seen among the other members. I even doubted that he was one of the Dalton members at first."
"So what makes you sure he's a Black Aoudra member?"
The last remaining weapon in his hand, Marzio raised it to the rack before pulling Mallory out of the safe. Closing the thick steel door tightly with its large lock until it clicked shut. "I saw him talking to Dalton near your school the other day. Lorenzo was dressed in the school soccer team's clothes, while Dalton was always in his most covered-up suit."
Mallory silently leaned her back against the wall with her arms folded in front of her chest, her gaze falling to the corner of the room even as her mind wandered to other things. I need to find out more about who and what Lorenzo really is to Dalton, but where do I start? Lorenzo's movements at school were mysterious despite his prominence, almost as much as Dalton's own,
Marzio moved his eyeballs catching the small change in Mallory's face. "If you want to find out about Lorenzo, it wouldn't hurt if you dared to take the time to talk to him a lot." Mallory lifted her chin in response to Marzio's words. "He's very mysterious, Ry. Many of the old members of Randzion before you don't even know who he is in the biker gang."
Mallory's slightly weighed down chest released her breath slowly, her tongue playing around the space inside her cheeks. "Where do you keep Chaopard?" Mallory straightened her body.
"It's in a small room hidden in the drawer of your bedroom cabinet, just look for it." he replied.
Mallory nodded her understanding of what Marzio was saying and she took off running out of the basement and up to her room on the second floor. As soon as the door opened, she went straight down the room to the cabinet drawer next to her bed. Pulling the bottom drawer all the way out, then pressing slightly on the inside edge of the shelf caused another small door to open. Blue light pierced her vision with a soft glow, its reflection glinting delicately on the wooden surface. Her thumbs and forefingers reached out cautiously for the object, its glow growing brighter and brighter as if responding to Mallory.
"It feels illegal to see something as beautiful as Chaopard for your own enjoyment, but you're too dangerous if it actually falls into the hands of someone like Dalton." Mallory's voice came out faint as if blending with the wind, looking at the diamond before her with a twinkle that implied too many unspoken words. "If only Anthony could see and keep this thing longer,"
***
Mallory had just finished her last ritual of getting ready to go to school when her cell phone that would normally go to local news alerts went off earlier than usual. She turned off the music blaring from the speakers, looking at the phone screen on her nightstand while her hands dealt with putting her black leather jacket up her arms. Reading the news made her lower her eyebrows together and her eyelids creased reaching for the phone, bringing the screen closer to make sure she didn't misread the headline.
The girl quickly finished her preparations for school early, grabbing her usual bag for school. Her legs strained to carry it through every part of the house, until she reached the stairs to see Marzio downstairs reading a magazine in the living room. Approaching Marzio shook the couch he was sitting on though the man kept his focus solely on the magazine in front of him, ignoring his younger brother as if he wasn't even next to him. Mallory thrust her hand to display the phone screen directly in front of the man's face, Marzio backed away from his face slightly removing the glasses he was wearing.
"What is this?" Marzio grabbed his sister's cell phone to see what his sister wanted to show him.
"Anthony's death is on the news again," Mallory replied calmly. "They said there was a CCTV footage not too far from the race track on Olympic Dr. that showed two people doing something on Anthony's bike," Mallory replied, causing Marzio to straighten up his seat and remove the magazine from his hand.
"It's finally picked up again, even though this incident happened two years ago, we still don't know who the perpetrators are." Marzio used his thumbs to quickly scroll through each news page on the web, displaying some of the footage from the scene two years ago, including other footage that Mallory had just added.
Marzio played the latest video footage pulling Mallory along. The video rotated to show a street on a mid-summer night along a sidewalk filled with teenagers cheering on two motorcycles racing from the other side of the street. The footage zooms in on the side of an empty building with many sports bikes parked. Two men emerge from the next street wearing dark clothing but clearly carrying items in their hands, both walking up to a blue and white sports bike parked in the corner. Mallory pointed at the screen towards the blue and black motorcycle next to him, certain that it was his own motorcycle parked next to Anthony's. In the few seconds that followed, the man finished doing something to Anthony's bike before hurrying away, quickly looking around to make sure no one had seen them, then disappearing into the darkness.
"I can't see their faces in this footage because it's dark, but either way it's very clear that they did something to Anthony's bike," Marzio handed the phone back to his brother, he rubbed his own nose in thought. "I'll figure this out with William." He then got up from the sofa walking towards the stairs grabbing the black jacket hanging on the banister.
"If you find anything meaningful, let me know in chat." Mallory shouted at Marzio who was still wearing his jacket, but he seemed to be nodding with his hand in an 'okay' gesture.
"What are you going to school with? Do you want me to drive you or do you want to ride your own bike?"
Mallory looks away from her phone, lifting her gaze to Marzio in silent thought. "I'll take the bike," she reaches into her bag as Marzio grabs the keys from their bike on top of the fridge.
"Last night Papa came to the house himself, looking for you. He came to ask how we were doing, and he said he wanted to talk to you about something important." Marzio looked at Mallory's face from his right side as he took the keys together, Mallory sighed at that.
"I won't give him the slightest chance to contact me," Mallory insisted. "Oh yeah, Lorenzo was home alone last night?" Her eyes stared back.
Marzio laughed so low that Mallory stepped back once thinking her brother might have gone crazy. "He came to the house with food, with a very pitiable look on his face saying that you went out with another man while he himself was buying tickets for you." he explained, after which he acted out Lorenzo's expression when he came to the house.
Mallory laughed with satisfaction. "I'm late enough to keep laughing at this," Mallory said, extending her hand for a high-five with Marzio before leaving.
The two brothers with the last name Halloran exited their house on their sports bikes, each riding a different exit route. Mallory lowered the clear glass of his helmet before lowering his body to pull the gas even deeper releasing the roar of his motorcycle engine to fill the air of the streets in the early morning. The leaves on the trees swayed disturbingly in the strong wind that split as Mallory rode past at high speed.
Arriving at the school at a reduced speed, the moment his feet hit the parking lot of the building. Not far from where she stood removing her helmet, she could see very clearly that there were many people gathered around the school's bulletin board. Mallory double-checked that the steering wheel was locked before taking a small jog towards the bulletin board, wondering why there was such a large crowd. Mallory was able to easily break through among the many people filling the place especially dominated by more men, she asked the man in front of her to shift until she could clearly see the paper on the bulletin board that attracted the attention of many people.
Mallory's forehead which was originally folded both eyebrows instantly rose just by seeing the title of the paper. "The Dr. Olymphic Race is open to the public, anyone can join the betting race with no age limit, even if you are not a member of a motorcycle gang, you can still register to participate." Mallory mumbled in disbelief, then read the bottom. "The prize that the winner will get is $9K if they can defeat the captain of Black Aoudra, Jonathan Caradine who will come down as a representative of the founder of Olymphic Dr. Race."
Mallory pushed back through the crowd away from the bulletin board walking alone in the corridor that was getting crowded with people who wanted to see. She walked with her head bowed and her eyes almost blank as she couldn't believe the news on display before her eyes. In his mind he wondered how and why the race was suddenly being held, by Jonathan Caradine as well. There was no confirmation whatsoever with Randzion, let alone Mallory considering the race event that was to be made an annual routine was first opened by Randzion's founder and Black Aoudra.
"What are they planning to do...?" said Mallory to himself. "But for sure, I'm sure they're doing this on purpose so that Randzion is provoked and decides to join... and they want to repeat what happened between Dalton and Anthony...," her footsteps took her through the side of the corridor with the same sheet, Mallory took out her cell phone to photograph the leaflet.
See you in the next part!
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