Elizabeth Crembell

I smiled at the random group of girls I was talking to as I pretended to be interested in their conversation. I wasn't here for some drama and gossip chit chat, I was here to get information for my mom and get out. I held my champagne glass filled with sparkling water close to my lips as my eyes scammed the area.

The gold walls highlighted my yellow eye contacts and my black long-sleeve mini dress complimented my muscular body figure while my black biker-jacket complimented my dangerous side.

"Sorry girlies," I leaned into the circle and put my hand up to my mouth. "Gotta use the ladies room." As I giggled with them I straightened, as I walked away I frowned and rolled my eyes. I ran my hand through my tousled brown hair and walked over to the refreshments table. Bowls of chips and chocolates were laid across the black tablecloth along with a glass fountain of punch. I cleared my throat and tapped on my ear chip.

"Mom, you in?" I asked in a low voice.

"Yep, honey, I'm here." I sighed in relief as I scammed the room once more.

"See everything? Are the contacts working?"

"Yes, everything's in order." The bowl of caramel corn caught my eye as shuffling papers sounds in my ear. I reached over and took a piece and popped it into my mouth. "I want you to look for a tall boy with blonde hair, he's one of the sons of the Shadow Eden."

The Eden is the organization that controls all of the world. The Eden was split up into four different parts: The Ember Clan, located in the East, The Legendary Clan, located in the West, The Shadow Clan, located in the South, and the Winter Clan, located in the North. Each Clan represented a separate part of the Eden and held the balance, keeping the world covered in peace, if peace was the right word. However, two of these clans turned on each other because of an unknown conflict before I was born, and the Eden Clans turned against each other.The North---Winter--and the West--Legendary--became one as did the South--Shadow-- and the East--Ember--, forming two clans instead of four and throwing the Eden into an unbalanced tragedy.

Each clan had their specialty of power. The Winter clan was basically able to freeze anything while the Legendary clan was able to bring people back from the dead in desperate measures and were very skilled in hand-to-hand battle. The Ember clan was able to move earthly properties and heal people with elixirs found in rocks and soil. The last clan was the Shadow Clan, the evilest of them all. The Shadow Clan read minds and brought pain to the body. One wrong look from a Shadow could kill you, making them ruthless and evil.

They would often take our people hostage and bare the truth out of them, or at least they tried. My people were trustworthy and never leaked information about where we would attack them or what we were planning. The Shadow clan have never gotten the information they've wanted, and they never will, but that always leads to a painful death.

My body shivered at the thought of being taken hostage by the Shadows. Whenever it came to them, cruelty and pain was almost always their way of getting what they wanted. I looked up and was surprised to meet a pair of icy blue eyes. His dirty blonde hair was gelled in the front to create a small shadow over his forehead and he was wearing a formal suit with a black bow tie. I lightly smiled and winked at him as he continued to stare at me while taking a sip of his drink from his wine glass.

"Mom, that better be him because otherwise I just winked at the wrong guy." Loud laughter filled my ear as I kept my eyes locked on the boy.

"Yes, Ellie, that's him. But be careful, he's a shadow. You know the rest of the plan so I'm disengaging the earpiece, he'll know I'm talking to you if it stays on. Just be careful, okay?" The boy nodded to his group of friends and set his glass on their table, getting up. As he began to walk over to me with his hands in his pockets a small click sounded in my ear, signaling that the earpiece was now off. I smiled and acted flustered as the boy smiled at me while approaching.

"Hi," His voice was smooth and warm, and it almost made me forget what I was here for. My plan was to go home with him, insert a USB chip into something electronic, distract him in the process, and return home with information about where they were going to attack and where my people were that were being held, hostage. I looked up and smiled a little wider, making eye contact with him.

"Hi," He studied my face as I stared at him. He laughed a little and pointed to his group of friends.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't help but catch the color of your ember eyes over there. They truly are something beautiful." I lightly crossed my arms over my chest and shrugged.

"I get that a lot, the compliments never stop coming. But thank you," He picked up two cups and filled the punch, handing me one.

"Thanks," I took a sip of the punch, tasting its fruitiness. As my lips left the cup some of my red lipstick stuck to the cup.

"So I'm guessing you're Bender then?" Each Clan had their own nicknames for their people, more like a code name. The Winter Clan had the code name of 'Frost', the people of the Ember Clan were called 'Benders', the people of the Legendary Clan were called 'Immortals', and people from the Shadow Clan were called 'Shadows'.

"I mean, going off of your eye color." He gestured to my eyes. Good, he was falling for it. The eye contacts were supposed to cover my natural brown ones so that I wouldn't blow my cover. I was the daughter of the chief, my mother. She was the leader of the Winter Clan, and I was the next heir.

"Correct," I leaned on the table towards him due to the fact that he was across from me. "An observant one, aren't we?" I looked at his lips and licked my own for a sexy-hunger affect. His eyes flicked onto my lips and then back onto my eyes.

"You wanna get outta here? Miss...?" I stood up straight and walked over to him, setting my glass down on the table. My heels clicked on the black tile as I made my way over to him. I took him by the bow tie and leaned in, stopping right before our lips made contact.

"Sapphire," I pulled away. "Sapphire Grand."

~X~

He opened the shiny, black car door for me and helped me in. He was about to close my door when I stopped him.

"I never caught your name." He kept his hand on my door but lifted his other hand to the collar of his tux, adjusting it with a cocky expression plastered on his face.

"Mason Parker." He closed the door and walked over to his side, opening the door and closing it behind him. As he situated himself in his seat he leaned forward and slid open a glass pane. "Home please," The driver nodded and put the car in drive, driving into the night.

"So," He rested back into his seat and smoothed out his tux. "What's your status?" I looked at him and raised my eyebrow. He put his hands up and laughed. "Not that kind of status. I mean your parents. Are they part of the genetics lab? Technicians? Hackers?" I nodded and rolled my eyes.

"They're engineers at the aircraft center."

"Ah," He nodded in an understanding manner. Engineers were very wealthy in this era, they made a lot of money by building weapons and selling them to their army forces. There was only one way to get filthy rich, and it was by selling weapons.

"But," I turned towards him. "If you would like to know my status," I crept closer to him and leaned over his body, placing each of my arms on either side of his body and closing my face near his. "I'm single." His eyes widened from my bold move, but his expression soon showed a wry smile.

"You know," He began to slide his hand up my leg, getting close to the hem of my dress. "I think I'm more comfortable than the seat." My God, someone who just wants sex. I smiled and adjusted myself on the seat, getting up and straddling his lap.

"Better?" He asked as my brown hair fell over my shoulders. I slipped off my leather jacket and set it down next to us.

"Much better." This wasn't exactly what I was into, but I would do whatever it took in order to get the information I needed in order to bring it back to my mother. His hands slid behind my back, pulling me closer to him. I smiled, trying to conceal my disgust. Suddenly a raging headache came over me, and I squinted my eyes shut to try and get rid of it.

"What's wrong, love?" I shook my head and put my hands on his shoulders for something to hold on to, I felt like I was going to pass out.

"Just a headache."

"You sure?" He asked almost in an evil tone. I looked up at him as his eyes bored into mine. An evil smile was spread across his face as he continued to look at me. My body trembled and shook vigorously. My breathing ruptured and came in short gasps.

"You devil," I whispered as he pushed me down onto the seat. As my back hit the leather he loomed over me.

"How stupid do you think I am?" His eyes widened and an even more dreadful surge of pain coursed through my body, I felt like my eyes were going to roll to the back of my head and stay there. I looked him in the eye and scowled at him.

"Stupid enough." The last thing I heard was a chuckle from Mason's lips, and the last thing I felt was a slap in my face before I fell unconscious.