Đây là một phần nhỏ mình viết cho một assignment ở trường, cũng coi như là Chap 1 của truyện. 

It had never been hotter ever since those snail-snappers darkened their door.

She stumbled for a moment, desperately gasping with hopes of plucking up some courage. The heat was not that frightening but the unnecessarily coruscating look of the hotel clearly just consumed her. She was around fifteen with the bizarrely pale skin and watering eyes, looking sadly too mature for her age. It was never either comfortable for her being accustomed to wearing such glamorous raiment, especially the latest mode de Paris shirtwaister that only God knows how it made its way here. But that did not apply to the black gloves. They were her special addition.

She tried to be more professional, humbly nodded with the commissionaire while putting on an elegant smile and walked straight to the bar. A man in a white suit immediately bounced out of the chaise lounge when she came to his sight. He greeted her jovially.

"My dear good old friend! This suits you so well! Look how it turned our little duckling into!" he stopped for a few seconds to inhale, "And to whom do I owe this honour?"

"I envy you amazingly shameless prattler but drop the act already. You know why I'm here," she replied coldly.

It was reported that in the next two days, there would be a small conference held in this hotel between the representatives of America and the Govern General of French Indochina. Apparently, the U.S. force needed permissions to parachute into the central highlands. Their goal is to organize guerrilla bands among the highland people for any future violent opposition by the Japanese force, swearing vengeance for the attack on the Pearl Harbour.

"I'm surprised that you can blend in so well with those wretched predators, altogether smoking, drinking, and laughing then even snort about how many daughters of us they had raped," she snapped, settling herself on a quite comfortable seat.

"Relax, woman. It's just for work," he shrieked with a laugh.

She ignored him and turned to the bartender.

"Deux verre à cognac, s'il vous plait,"

"You know I'm no good around cognac," he cringed.

"Call yourself a womanizer and 'the best secret agent' but can't even handle sips of mediocre liquor? Very well then, no cognac for you, pathetic dunce," she smirked through the glasses taking from the bartender.

As waves of shame rolled over him, he blushed uncontrollably and snatched a glass out of her hand. He quaffed his drink by the pint, making no attempts to eat the leek and slam it back to the table.

"Being a top-class student doesn't make you a goddess here, filthy mutt. And how am I supposed to trust your source of information, who is that snitch exactly?"

She gulped it down, pretending like nothing had offended her at all and that must have to be her most wonderful moment. Leaning over for her purse on the nearby chair, she withdrew couples of rusty, purplish piaster. She amusedly toyed with one particular coin before sliding them over the table towards the bartender. Gently wheeled around, she reached to his neck regardless his reflex twitch and suspicious stare. She sneaked her thumbs inside his collar, unusually seemed to engulf in fixing it and fondling the nape.

"You're in no position to question here if ever there was one, dear friend. You've volunteered for this mission and I'll make sure to skin you alive forthwith any endeavoured failure. Vi has to be brought back in one piece. Either you decide to defend your little dove or not, we'll still never tolerate loathing traitors," she grinned.

"Was mine. She betrayed me too," he uttered with sorrow, prepared to get up but fell for an abrupt dizziness. She swiftly caught him, one hand slipped right into his jacket to hold his back while the other gripped the side.

"Better go prove it," she gave him a few seconds in her arms before lifting him up, let alone his indistinctive mumbles. He slightly shook his head and pushed her away, tottering towards the stairway.

By the time he got off at the fifth-floor by elevator, the effect of cognac had already worn off. He knocked on the door at the end of the hallway, waiting. Through hazes of smoke, a breath-taking beautiful woman in white corset walked out, fingers still wrapping around a smoking cigar. Her long, wavy, black hair, resting on the shoulders emphasized her magnificent façade.

"What's fun about the mongrel that took you so long?" she sulked, blowing smoke in his face.

"You created quite a mess and now even complain about how I clean it? She knows about your cover and now the whole Troop 10 may too" he scolded, shutting the door behind and went to close the curtains, "The General hasn't known about this. Yet. Soon enough I won't be able to protect you anymore."

"You'll whatsoever. I know you've always loved and taken care of me ever since we're still trainees," she leaned forward for a kiss, pressing her body against his for an embrace, "I'm sick of this stinky slum. I want to go to Paris. I want that luxurious life. I want to be a Madame," she giggles, punctuated with squeals, titters, and a furious flame of desire burning in her eyes. He held her face in hands, looked straight to them and eased her.

"You will. But we have to leave soon. They're planning to drag you back and torture you. I can't protect you if that mutt ever gets a chance to claw at you," he kissed her forehead softly as if she was his most precious treasure, "Put your clothes on. Take the dark ones. I will meet her across the street so you can watch it from here. Right when she falls down, you grab the files and see me around the Alexander Dumas corner."

She nodded, turned her head over and lingered on his hand a goodbye kiss.

He stepped out of the hotel, striding across the street where the appointment was chosen to be. He rested his back hidden from the view, behind a pillar of a building. From the jacket's inner pocket, he took out the singular, specially-wrapped cigar. He had a peculiar habit of keeping only one cigar he thought would be his last.

"That's fast. Where's she?" a voice resounded.

"Unconscious, on her bed now," still holding the cigar in his mouth, he glanced at her. The top-class student, what an annoying title. It irritated him thinking about how that arrogant gaijin can simply defeat him. Everyone thought she was some kind of genius but he knew, like the back of his hand, she was actually plain ignorant. What type of secret agent would encounter her enemy unarmed? The stupid one. And even with that dress? She was foolish drinking in every word of his bragging about the elite and docilely put that on. He could take her down in seconds without bringing a fight. And he would, for the sake of Vi.

"Have you ever thought of me as a friend?" an inappropriate compassion flicked across his mind.

"We were just three kids happened to be on the same team. Well, what to say, you two were very fine accompanies although you annoyed me as hell," she forced a smile and handed him a lighter, "and look how that kind of companionship got us here."

"Dim-witted nationalists like you need to realize how rotten this country is going now. They are helping us. Those inferiors, they may rebel on the outside but silently crave for them. And it's not too late for you to turn around," he gestured for her to look at the people in ragged clothes walking on the street, lighting up his cigar, "We need them."

He looked at her head shake sadly; and with an absurdly gloomy sneer, he pulled out from his jacket a silent pistol, pointing it towards her.

"You give me no choice. It has been a great journey and an honour to me knowing you."

A sudden breeze swept passed them.

For a second he thought he glimpsed a daze of horror in her eyes that he sensed both satisfaction and grief bolted through his body. He inhaled the smoke and pulled the trigger.

"Bitter almond," he gasped.

A body collapsed. Vi beat a hasty retreat across the room, straight down the street.

And she, the woman of triumph began to roar. Her dreadful scream tore the whole street apart and from houses to houses, buildings to buildings, people started to run like hares towards the terror of a dead body.

"Unlike you, I love our motherland unconditionally for every flaw of it. You wretch eat from this land's trees and drink from its fountain. Even half-witted will never bite the hands that feed it. Plus, there is a reason why I was always a top-class student," she bowed down, shedding a few phony tears and secretly grabbed the pistol, putting it inside her ajar purse, "I don't get easily stirred up and I don't let others touch my body."

Starring at the merely invisible purplish color stained on his nape, she grinned with extreme contentment before immersing herself in the crowd that started to accumulate. Unconsciously, she touched the knife tied to her left thigh.

"By the way, since you've missed chemistry 101, busy frolicking with that traitor, that's Wolfsbane," the cacophony of howl, screech, and yelp swallowed her figure but her mind was so tranquil like she had never felt such serenity before. She put the loaded cartridges back to its belonged place and spot the woman in a dark manteau rushing across the crowd; her face filled with consternation and her ghostly-like look was unmistakable. She ducked down impatiently and in a blink of the eye, she approached Vi. She seized the conspirator's elbow, pressing the barrel between what she believed were the traitor's 4th and 5th ribs, where the most fragile ventricles located. Before that filthy scum could turn around and glare at her with those foul eyes, she pulled it.

"Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise," she cried.