It's an unsettling feeling, knowing your every move is being watched. All of the oxygen seemed to be sucked from the room--and my lungs.

I tracked a few agents' gazes. They were assessing me, scanning me--either with their Info Lenses or not, I couldn't tell. Even the band playing soft jazz--which seemed really unappropriate for a punky bar--on top of the roof of the hallway on the first floor (the bar had a high ceiling, and the hallway roof was more of a balcony overlooking the first floor) seemed to quiet.

I managed a smirk to mask the color rising in my cheeks. The bar seemed to take it as their cue to resume their chatting. Staring eyes became turned backs. Some of the men almost looked the slightest bit woeful to turn around and stare at the ice melting in their drinks. I gave the last-lookers the what-you-starin'-at look; They turned back to their table group and continued in hushed voices. The ability to ward people off with a stare re-kindled the sparking fire inside of myself. Not that bad for a city girl who hasn't seen anybody except her roomate for the past few months.

I noticed two women talking to each other in hushed voices. One sat atop a leather stool, facing the other who was filling fancy whiskey glasses behind the counter. Next to them were two more women, one of them being Anne.

The woman filling glasses glanced up at me and caught my gaze.

"Loretta," she smiled in greeting.

"Brighton," I returned.

Brighton, the owner of Brighton's Bar, gestured to a stool at the end of the counter which was the only one available. I plopped myself onto it.

In the seat on my right, the woman Brighton had been speaking to pulled her phone out.

"Postcards?" she asked. I assumed she was regarding me. With her fingers flying over the screen and her eyes focused it was hard to tell. 

"What?"

"Postcards," she answered. "After retreating from the line of fire, you tell me to keep in touch with you by USPS?"

"Ava, Ava, Ava... Always doing things the modern way no matter the risk."

Ava Sencen rolled her eyes, looking at me for the first time. "I just think texting woulda bin a lot easier. Do you know how hard it is to get a postcard in Greece? So many tourists."

I nodded incoherently. "You know, texting is risky when your an agent working for a secret organization."

"And postcards are any less risky?" Ava countered.

I rolled my eyes in resignation. Changing the subject, I said, "So, when did you get back? I thought you were just getting settled in Greece."

"Landed yesterday." She pocketed her phone and brought her glass closer. "With all this stuff going on I haven't been able to sleep properly." I could tell much by the dark coloration underneath her eyes.

I raised an eyebrow. "Have you been reading at the wrong hours?"

Ava groaned. "It was a good book."

"Don't you have work to do?"

"Sometimes."

"Don't you need sleep to do it?"

"Five hours is enough."

I sighed. "Whatever. Different people have different work ethics."

"Exactly!" she said enthusiastically before finishing her cup with a full bottom-up.

From behind the counter, Brighton popped a bottle of cider. As she poured, I watched in amusement. The foam bubbled to the rim of the elaborate whiskey glass but didn't fizz any higher; the foam fizzled weakly and paused, just at the top of the glass, before deflating to a fluffy coating over a sparkling burgundy liquid. Bubbles rose and clung to the wall of the cup.

Brighton slid the glass across the counter toward me; I caught it in my hand. I let the fizzing drink slosh in the cup.

"Smooth," Ava nodded next to me. "Real smooth."

I laughed lightly. "Sarcasm?"

"Yup."

"Okay." The space between us became silent and awkward again. Anne and whoever she was talking to--I peered past Ava and realized it was her theatre partner, Olivia Walker--had gone quiet, too. I could feel the thoughts of my comrades engulf the space between us; they thought of me. How I was handling my battle scars? The weight of guilt, pressure on my shoulder.

Typical Anne split the sea of churning thoughts like Moses the Red Sea. "Here comes the silence," she sang. Then Anne added, "To the tune of Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles." She emphasized the name of one of my least favorite bands.

Ava, Olivia, and I simultaneously groaned. On the other side of the counter where she was stacking cups, Brighton giggled.

"Noooo!" Ava hid her face in her arms. From the sound she made against the counter, I concurred she had hit her forehead in the process. My theory was confirmed when she let out a half-groan-half-"owwwww."

I let out an undignified snort. Olivia happened to be finishing the last of her drink at that moment. Instead, she only choked and spit the last of it back into the glass. Anne snickered at both incidents.

I started laughing. Anne caught my laughter. When Ava lifted her head, she began laughing hysterically. (Just a note: her laughter is the ultimate definition of contagious laughter.) Once Olivia was done coughing the last drops of liquid out of her lungs, she caught the disease, along with Brighton. Both flopped onto the counter for support.

Five minutes of endless laughter, tears of joy, and reddening, air deprived faces, the fun died as if we forgot what we were laughing about.

After coughing the last bits of hysterical joy from her lungs, Brighton swung a drying towel over her shoulder and announced, "I'm gonna finish cleaning." With that, she slipped through a door behind the wall, leaving them swinging.

My cheeks ached from smiling for so long; I stretched and exercised my cheeks. Anne and Ava's faces were hot pink. Olivia wiped the tears from her eyes.

As quickly as the silence had been broken a few minutes ago, it came right back. I swished the last of my cider around in the fancy whiskey glass before sloshing it down my throat.

I thought of ways to get a conversation started again. My concentration on bringing up the weather broke when I heard the entrance doors open and close with a shuck. Heels clicked heavily against the granite floor, similar to when I clomped in.

I turned around to see who else was going to barge in for the meeting. From around the corner of the wall the parts the entrance hallway and the rest of the bar, a panting woman revealed herself. Her hands were on her knees, trying to regain her breath. She wore a black blazer and a pencil skirt. Instead of a tie underneath her collar, a thin gold chain that looped several times hung lazily. The woman's hair was braided into dreadlocks, the tips dyed turquoise.

When she stood straight again I embarrassingly took a sharp breath in. I don't know why, but I did. It might have been because she struck me as beautiful (not that I was jealous--I was just...surprised) in a get-stuff-done-with-a-rebellious-side kind of way. It didn't surprise me when she walked into the back room with one foot in front of the other and appeared a few moments later on top of the second-floor stage like a strict college professor. It was when she hoisted herself on top of the piano that I remembered the rebellious side I had sensed earlier. I couldn't comprehend how someone could have such opposite personalities

The band playing soft jazz stopped as if they were awaiting a grand speech. The guy playing the piano, however, seemed uncomfortable from where he was sitting and where the woman in black had placed herself.

The jumble of Custodes members in the bar lowered to conversations to a whisper when they turned to face her.

Brighton came out from the back room with a towel slung over her shoulder and workers following her.

My friends at the counter turned to listen because the aura of a speech was pulling each of us one by one.

Ava whispered in my ear, "Here we go again. Another two-hour long briefing."

As if on cue, the woman in black on top of the piano began speaking. "Welcome Custodes members," she began in a regal voice. "To the annual Masquerade ball training."