SHADOWS - Adversary

CHAPTER 1

An alarm clock went off in a small room, in a small house in Monto, Queensland, causing a young sandy-haired woman to wake with a start. Nora Mayfield sat up, a thick book closing with a thud as if fell off her chest and onto her lap.

She glared at her alarm clock sleepily; she had never actually used it before now. The time was 7:00 am.

Getting up to turn off the horrible noise issuing from the alarm, Nora smelled something burning. "Good old Dad," she muttered, smiling as she walked out of her blue-carpeted room into the hallway. The hallway was short, with only two doors; one for Nora's father's room and the other for the bathroom. Photos covered any space where the doors didn't. Having looked at them so many times before, Nora had no need to inspect them as she made her way into the spacious and smoke-filled kitchen.

"Morning birthday girl!" Nora's dad, Peter, said as she groggily stumbled into the kitchen. He turned around and scooped several blackened pancakes onto a plate in the middle of the round wooden table. "How're you feeling?" He asked, his hazel eyes settling on her brown.

"Like I have athsma," she replied shortly, swishing the smoke away with a tea-towel and opening some windows. This was routine now, as Peter had made Nora pancakes for her birthday for twenty-one years exactly. Today, however, was a much more important birthday than the rest.

Peter looked at Nora, eyebrows raised. "Seriously," he said, clearly not satisfied with her sarcastic remark.

Nora sighed. "A little nervous, I guess," she mumbled. Nervous was an understatement of course. She was going to be moving countries to get a job. What if she didn't get it? She literally shuddered at the thought. She had been preparing fot this job her entire life, which was one of the reasons Nora had never bothered to move out of home, not even for university. Online courses where good like that.

"That's a good sign." He said.

"Really? Why are you so bloody superstitious?"

Peter chuckled. "In our line of work you sort of learn to be." He said, putting some porceline plates on the small wooden table and sitting.

"True," Nora replied, grabbing the maple syrup from the back of the cupboard. As she sat down, Nora knew what Peter was about to say before he even spoke. Although it wasn't exactly rocket science; he had been repeating it all month. Nora nonetheless let him say what he wanted to say.

Peter took a breath and spoke. "You know you don't have to leave, right. You could stay and just work the smaller cases with me."

"Dad," Nora sighed. "It's not that I want to leave, because I don't and I'm gonna miss you like hell. But I want to work the big cases like you did when you were my age, you know. Australia is just a little too safe for my liking."

"Yeah I know. It's 'land of the plenty' except for one thing."

"Exactly."

* * *

Nora hated flying. With a passion. She hated waiting for the flight to be ready, with the creepily happy stuardess and the turbulence and she hated getting sick. It was just plain awful.

She groaned as her flight name was called out across the airport in a woman's voice.

"Come on," Peter said to his daughter, "it's not that bad."

"Easy for you to say" Nora grumbled, standing and picking up her duffle bag. One bag, that's all she needed for the job she wanted. She couldn't exacly pack everything she owned, just the essentials. Besides, she was going to America and she wasn't coming back any time soon. This was not a holiday.

"I had to catch a flight when I was your age too, remember?"

"Wait, planes existed back then?" Nora asked, pretending to be shocked.

"Ha ha, very funny Nora," he smiled, giving her a playful shove. As they came to the flight entrance his face turned serious, "now be careful, okay?"

"I will Dad," she sighed. She gave her dad a kiss on the cheek and took one final look around.

God, I'm gonna miss it here, she thought. Nora was going to miss the hot, bright sunlight even though it was only 6:30 am, the gum trees that surrounded her home, the town she grew up in... she was going to miss Australia in general.

"Bye Dad!" she called, finally walking on the plane. "I'll see you at Christmas!"

He nodded and waved in response. "Just make sure you're in one piece," he muttered, feeling the anxiety settle.