Coffee and Books 2

6. The chapel

Hiding in one of the bathroom stalls, standing on top of the toilet seat, I wait for my pursuer to find me. I hold my shoes in my hands as makeshift weapons. My heart is racing and I can barely think straight. The door handle bangs loudly against the tiled wall. 

This is it. 

Footsteps approach the stalls. I try to hold my breath, but it doesn't work because I have been running like hell.

The man who followed me in this church opens the door that hid me from view. He is tall, with short brown hair and a two day stubble. 

"There you are!", he says, taking a step forward.

"Get away from me!" I scream on the top of my lungs.

The man looks surprised for a second and then a green light ripples over his body. On the next count I am looking at Loki. "Sorry about that," he says, extending his hands to me. He barely catches me when I slip of the toilet.

Loki carries me back to the now empty waiting room bridal style and puts me in a chair. He kneels before me, adjusting my dress a little so I am decent. 

"Are you alright, my little wolf?"

I shake my head, not being able to talk just yet, my heart is still hammering in my chest. 

A woman walks in the room, a clipboard in her hand. "Good evening, lovebirds! Fill this in and we'll be ready for you in twenty minutes." She hands Loki the clipboard, who takes it without looking away from me.

"Yeah, yeah, I've got her. No thanks to you," Loki suddenly says in an annoyed voice. I realise he is still wearing the communication disc. "I'll get her back to the hotel." He peels the tiny disc from behind his ear and crushes it under his shoe.

"You were the third guy coming after me," I think out loud.

Loki nods and gives me a crooked smile. "You sure can run, my little wolf."

"And the other two?"

"I left them for M'Teki and her team to clean up. One of 'm had a broken nose before I got to him. Was that your doing?"

I nod 'yes'.

"Good girl," Loki says and he kisses my forehead.
There is no 'I told you so', no telling me I got in way over my head. Of course I should have listened to him and stayed out of this, but he will not rub my nose in it.

When I ask him about it, Loki explains how he got M'Teki to temporarily restore his magic. He had a little trouble with casino security when Blackstoke took me to the kitchens, so Loki couldn't follow me right away. 

"There was some confusion when he took you to the back. Somehow we missed that you lost the communication device. That's why M'Teki's team was a little behind."

Recovered from the running and the shock of it all, I get up and look around the room. On the walls are large picture frames filled with photos of couples, all of them sitting in a car that came straight out of the movie Grease. I also spot Elvis, in his famous white suit with rhinestones and fringes. 

I start laughing. "Loki, do you know where we are?"

"I think I can make an educated guess," he says from close behind me.

The woman comes in again. "I hope you brought identification, my dears. Did you fill out those forms yet?"

I put my arms around Loki and give him a kiss. "What do you think? Want to get married by Elvis?"

My dark haired prince isn't as fast to react to my joke as I expected. He just looks at me with a little smile on his face, stroking my hair. "Another time, my love."
He chuckles when he sees the shocked look on my face and softly grazes my lips with his. "Let's go, my little wolf. Hold tight."