5 Las Vegas

"Did that mongrel tell you what his 'buddy old pal' did?!"

Rachel yelled from a distance, making a few heads turn their way. Katherine immediately shushed her and hurried her to sit down.

Attention and Katherine never got along well so she'd rather stay away from it.

"Can you believe what my blockhead of a cousin's self-proclaimed 'rival' did?!" She said sitting across me. Darren perked up at this and Katherine could tell, even though he continued eating, that he was listening intently.

Katherine looked at her in curiosity this time. "What did he do?"

But after asking, she slightly regretted it because Rachel suddenly turned red.

Literally seething red.

Her face, cheeks, and neck turned red and if she looked hard enough, steam might even be coming out of her ears. She formed her hands into fists and she started shaking while staring into the distance. Then, as if a switch has been flipped, she closed her eyes and slowly breathed in and out, making her body relaxed. But Katherine could still see the swirling anger in her eyes.

"Here's the thing. That fucking Drake placed muddy snakes in my locker. Muddy. Snakes!!!! And it absolutely ruined my books and notebooks! But most importantly, it ruined my new necklace! My. Friggin. Necklace. From. Paris! Well, I think it was from Paris since I stole it from that drunk French girl that kept bragging about it. But still, it doesn't change the fact that it was RUINED! And guess what?!"

Rachel felt that her anger was beginning to go out of control so she slowly breathed a few times before continuing.

"I found a note in one of the snakes that said, 'Hope you love my gift, Darren.' And i'm just wondering how Drake mistook my locker as his locker." She said all of this while glaring at Darren who squirmed and flinched every once in a while.

"Stop blaming people, Rachel," Katherine remarked as she took a swig of her water. But hearing her monotonous response, Rachel looked at her in disbelief.

"You're actually siding with him?!" She said with wide eyes as she covered her mouth in an over-exaggerated expression of shock.

"Nope. It's just that both your stories don't connect. He's angry, you're angry, all because of one dude and you're pointing fingers." She said shrugging as she started to eat her chicken.

"First of all, ew. Why do you even eat that? That's so undercooked, I can see the blood and everything. You know you should really buy food out of this cafeteria. I mean, here is free and all, but the meals are just so poorly done that you're better off somewhere else."

Rachel looked at Katherine's meal in disgust but Katherine didn't feel offended since Rachel usually comments that most of the time that she grew used to it. And besides, the meal isn't really that bad. In fact, she'd prefer this over their questionable soup.

"Secondly," Rachel continued as she tried not to look at Rachel eating. "Entertain me, dear cousin. What made you oh-so angry? I'm sure the reason would be far more infuriating than mine." She said sarcastically making Darren scowl at her.

"I said stop blaming, Rachel," Katherine said while finishing off the last of her chicken. As her reply, Rachel used her hand to cover half of her vision to block her view of Katherine eating.

Darren seemed like he really wanted to say something so Katherine nodded her head to encourage him to start talking. He finally sighed and looked at Rachel sharply.

"First of all, don't blame me for what happened to your locker. I'm as clueless as you are. But if I were to guess, I have a feeling that he was watching me when I dumped your books this morning. Still, not my fault! You always tell me to dump those freakishly heavy books almost every day. And besides, you're locker doesn't even have a lock so as I said, it's not my fault at all." He said with a shrug and continued.

"And I still have to get back to that bastard. Can you believe he actually stole my clothes while I was washing off after the gym? He placed it on top of the gym lockers and I had to jump a few times just to reach it. When I finally got it, I slipped and my towel nearly fell. And what even worse was that the guys at the gym took a video of it and decided it was funny to post it online. And so they did. Fuck. All this happened because of that bastard. I swear to god, i'll kill that mother-fucking son of a bitch someday." He mumbled angrily as he drank his soda in one go. Then, he stood up and began walking out of the cafeteria.

Rachel looked at his retreating back and groaned. She looked at Katherine apologetically and Katherine nodded in understanding. Whenever Darren got angry, she was always the one calming him down. Despite being angry herself, Rachel still knew what words to say to calm an angry man.

Katherine tried it once but it probably just worsened his anger.

The sound of Rachel's chair scraping in the tile made her wince as she looked at the little redhead run to the direction where Darren left.

'Alone again, as usual.'

She couldn't help but comment to herself.

After lunch, the day seemed to pass by like a breeze. She tuned out most of the things she was doing and well, now she found herself here in an airplane again with an invitation to an event in Las Vegas's famous casino and hotel. It was nearing midnight and she just finished all the reports she had due for the week before leaving so she's feeling a bit drained. But instead of resting her mind by sleeping, she couldn't help but think.

Whoever sent her to kill Arius was either desperate, insanely rich, or maybe both because who the hell would sponsor an all-expense-paid trip to Las Vegas for just a few hours?

Coming from a girl under debt, she just shook her head at how people spend money nowadays.

"Excuse me, ma'am?" The flight attendant said softly beside her, making Katherine snap out of her thoughts. She looked around and noticed that she was the only one standing left. Looking at the flight attendant's impatient look, she smiled at her apologetically as she sat down in her seat. Then, she grabbed her sleeping mask and slept, temporarily erasing all dread of meeting Arius once again.

A few hours later, the plane landed and she got into a decent car which they actually lent to her with a key. It was a sports car that looked absolutely expensive that she somehow felt reluctant to use it. She felt that if she so much as place a scratch on it, it'll probably add on to her debt again.

But she didn't have a choice so she drove carefully, her speed almost similar to a person walking.

After a lengthy amount of minutes, she finally got into the hotel where her target, Arius, would be. Going inside, she nearly gaped at how grand the hotel-casino was. She felt totally out of place with her ragged ripped blue jeans and sky blue tank top.

After showing the front desk the invitation she received, all the while ignoring their dubious stares, she quickly went to her already reserved room and dumped her suitcase by the bed. Opening it, she grabbed her red glittery dress and tried her best not to cringe while doing so.

Apparently, according to the letter, her mission for today is to act as some sort of a high-class hooker and seduce Mr. Evans until he invites her to his room. Then, she has to stab him in the heart with the dagger they gave her before escaping through the secret passage made for VVIP's when emergencies occur.

It may be easy to plan about it but to do it in action was a million times harder so, good fucking luck to herself.

Rereading the letter they sent by the lamp, she sighed deeply, finally feeling all the aftereffects of riding a plane and studying too hard hours before she boarded. Seeing that the time for the event was still a few hours away, she burned the letter and decided to nap for a few minutes before showering and transforming herself into her role as a hooker.

Her few minutes of peacefulness were quickly gone and now, she reluctantly dragged herself to the luxurious bathroom. She began throwing her clothes lazily, not caring about how expensive-looking or grand the bathroom was anymore. All she wanted right now was to get the mission over with so that she can finally move on with her life.

She showered for nearly an hour, scrubbing off all the dirt in her skin. It made her look paler than usual but it also effectively made it seem as though she bathes in milk in her spare time. Then, she grabbed the white towel beside the shower room when she finished and she went back to her bedroom to get her red dress.

If she were to range, from one to a hundred, her reluctance to wear the dress, it'll be a whopping two hundred for her. She always felt uncomfortable wearing skimpy clothing and to top it off, she also hated being the center of attention. But now, ironically, she had to do it for work.

Looking at the dress, all she can describe was that it was, by far, the perfect definition of the borderline of slutty and sexy. The red dress glitters in the light and the tight silky cloth hugs the curves of her body then stops at her lower thigh. Since she's tall, the dress made her look taller and made her legs look longer. The dress had a tube top so it showed off her protruding collar bones and her newly shaven armpits.

After dressing up, she grabbed the curling iron they lent her and she curled her hair to those big curls she saw celebrities always do. Then, she let them fall off her back to make it look more natural. After finishing up with her hair, she applied the light makeup she planned to use; powder, eyeliner, mascara, blush, and red lipstick. Then, after fixing her eyeliner a bit, she grabbed her red stilettos and went to the full-length mirror to look at her finished product.

When she was finally satisfied with her work, she began equipping herself with hidden daggers and needles in the inside of her thighs. And to stop herself from freezing from the cold air-conditioned room, she grabbed the white fur coat that was in her suitcase before getting the red purse that she needed in order to hide the invitation and her cleaning supplies.

Then, trying to calm her racing heart, she breathed deeply before slowly making her way to the bottom floor where the underground casino was.