The Best Bride

9. COP

The first question that crossed my mind after knowing those three robbers were Purple, Marigold and Lady Boo: how did they get their hands on handguns?  

I knew they must have faced hard times like me, but, unlike me, they had chosen the easiest way to make the situation easy, which was by robbing the bank.  

The police would investigate the case for sure. Their bad act had now trapped all of us with wings. They had been foolish not to hide their wings under the black robes they were wearing.  

My eyes were on the television but I wasn't actually seeing it now that I'd something to worry about. I thought about my sister for the first time after separating our ways, and wondered how she was passing her days and if she and Ross knew about this robbery news or not... 

Hours passed. My brain felt weighty in the skull. And then my eyelids became heavy and somehow I fell asleep, later in the night.  

*** 

Something stung my face, and I opened eyes wide. Sunlight was filtering through the open window inside the room; I could tell by the sharpness of the light and the mixed noise of people and the machine coming through the windows that it was already late in the morning. 

I rolled aside and wrapped the duvet around my body and ambled towards the windows like a blind man. I reached my hand for the curtains, bearing the sunlight on the skin. When I found the curtains, I pulled them together over the windows and shielded the sunlight.  

I puffed out a deep breathe and let the duvet fell off me. 

The electric light, which I hadn't switched off the previous night, was now lighting the room. I turned to the blue box confusingly. I didn't remember turning it off last night, but there it was on the long table with its lid capped on. I supposed it must have automatically turned off.  

The sunlight had given red patches to my hands, but these patches disappeared once I went through the Sunshield routine. I carried the bag over my shoulder and walked to the window. Ant-sized pedestrians roamed the street about forty floors down. It was impossible to land without anyone seeing.  

I blamed the softness and warmth of the bed for waking up late, and tried to come up with another tactic.  

An idea hit me. 

I put my feet on the windowsill and jumped. I fell one floor down but then the wings stretched out and, with a mighty beat, I pulled myself up in the air, past five floors up and finally grounded my feet on the topmost floor.  

I hurried out the roof through the open door, found an elevator on the forty-fourth floor and got in. I pressed the floor number one, and the elevator started descending. 

Once I walked out the elevator after reaching the first floor, the auburn haired lady behind the large desk in what-seemed-to-be-a-lobby cheerfully greeted me "Morning" to which I acknowledged with a nod and small smile.  

The cheer faded away from her face once she saw the wings on my back.  

I stopped just outside the building to take a better view of it. The neon signs on the first floor of the building read Orient Guest House. The guest house was forty sixth storied tall in height, expanded about two hundred feet in width.  

It was ten past ten according to the clock on my cell phone. I ate sandwiches and milk in a café taking longer time than I needed to finish them.  

Remembering I hadn't bought any gift for Isaac, I headed to the gift shop, two blocks away from the café, and bought a birthday greeting card with the remaining money. I decided not to input anything in the card in ink.