Failure to Deliver

She couldn't get past security. The big, burly men wearing dark clothes, dark sunglasses and earpieces wouldn't let her through.

They looked like secret service men, but without the stern business-type jackets. Instead, they wore black polos and black button-downs, still stern and serious, but having an air as if they had walked out of a men's high-end fashion magazine.

Faith wasn't impressed and glared at them through narrowed eyes as she took a seat at a nearby booth. Setting down a flat, gift-wrapped box on the table, she let the roller blades she held in her other hand thump loudly on the floor to sound her displeasure.

They didn't believe she was his niece. They had tried to get in touch with him through his personal assistant over their earpieces, but he was 'unavailable'. They tried to contact her aunt the same way, but her PA said she was 'unavailable'. Without anyone to vouch for her identity, they wouldn't let her backstage to see him.

Frowning, she untied her shoes and slipped them off, as the guards looked on with what she assumed was indifference. She couldn't really tell with their eyes hidden behind the secret-service glasses. It was possible they were looking on with confusion or even curiosity, but it seemed inappropriate for a security guard at a high-end nightclub to show that kind of interest in something so trivial while on the clock. They had to be ready for any sort of trouble. A girl taking off her shoes in a corner of the club, though odd, wasn't inherently trouble.

She wasn't obvious trouble until they saw her slip on her roller blades.

She laced them up fast, before security could approach her. Besides they had already asked her to leave, (she was under age after all, and unaccompanied by an adult), so she was leaving.

But they never specified how they wanted her to leave.

Quickly grabbing her shoes and the flat, wrapped box, she jumped to her feet and bolted from the table before they could grab her, skating into the crowd. A waitress screamed as she almost spilled her tray of beers as the girl sped past.

Suddenly, Faith heard the woman scream again, followed by a crash, and looked over her shoulder in surprise. Barrelling through the crowded club after her, one of the security guards had knocked over the poor waitress. A puddle of beer and broken glass lay on floor next to her while a co-worker and a club patron helped her up.

Shaking her head, Faith turned her attention back to where she was going. Grown-ups sucked.

The girl skated a round-about way to the exit, weaving and dodging past club-goers, and doing so gracefully, which she couldn't help feeling proud about. She did scare a number of the people she sped past, but at least she avoided knocking anyone over. That was rude. Not to mention that it would cut down her speed and kill her momentum.

Besides, the guards chasing her were considerably less graceful or considerate anyway. Their effort to catch her terrorized people more than Faith did herself on her roller blades.

When she reached the front of the club, she burst through the doors in a grand exit, surprising a pair of club-goers as they entered. On the street, she kept her speed until she skated several blocks away, only slowing down when she noticed the security guards had given up pursuit. She was no longer in the club, so it was no longer their job to catch her.

Sighing, she rolled down the street at a slow cruise. Now that the anger, excitement and adrenaline were gone, all she had left was disappointment.

She looked at the package she still held in her hand. The box was now bent and dented, and the Christmas wrapping torn at the corner where it got snagged on something. At least, the contents weren't fragile, even if the packaging didn't survive. She would have to re-wrap it when she got back to her hotel room.

Then she noticed she had dropped one of her shoes and swore.

[Follow-up on Busted on Sylvia Mendoza's blog.]