Protecting Valentine

Chapter Four

Lance stared boredly at the monitor with a map of Aldhaven plastered across it. The anticipation that he had once started with had gone and he knew that this day would end like every other day. Nothing will happen. He took a deep breath to try and get out of the boredom phase, but his eyelids said otherwise, they began to droop until they met with the bottom part of his eyes. He didn't even realise his head had dropped down to the table and he had gone into a deep slumber.

He had been staring at that monitor for 8 hours already so you couldn't really blame him for sleeping on the job. Lance did this on a daily basis, usually for many hours a day, he never worked under 10 hours. His boss had always kept him and his other workers on their toes, Lance didn't really understand what was so important about the little town Aldhaven, which he had to watch and deprived him of his sleep and a proper life. But he never raised any questions and kept in his place. The boss was already intimidating as he was and he wasn't too keen to get in his bad books. So he just stared at the monitor, the little seed of hope disintegrating as everyday goes by with no signs of activity on the monitor or in Aldhaven.

After seeing many days like this, he slept at work more often and sort of stopped caring, even the other workers kind of slowed their pace and everything looked like a movie being played in slow motion. He didn't realise that he had gone into such a deep slumber until he was being violently shaken by one of his employers. It was Chris. Lance and Chris had become quite close in the job since they had a lot in common, by now they had each other's backs, especially if one was dozing and their monitor was blinking and making loud noises.

Half opening his eyes, he looked at the map that had the rare red dot blinking in a specific place. The moment he saw the blinking dot, he had sort of a mini adrenaline rush, his eyes nearly bulged out of his head and he started getting shortness of breath. He couldn't even make proper words come out of his mouth, instead hyperventilated noises took its place. Chris shook him again to get some sense into him, he might've even reverted to a good slap of the shaking didn't work. "This is the moment that we've all been waiting for!" Chris told him excitedly.

A smile spread across Lance's face and he looked at the monitor with his hope returning back to him. This is the moment we've all been waiting for. He never thought the moment would come where he would report to the boss and this made him a bit nervous. Next to him was the speaker that would connect him to his boss, he had never used it before and wondered if would still work after all this time. With a shaking hand he pressed the lone button and the personal assistant answered. "Yes?"

"I must talk with the boss immediately." He hissed into the mic.

"Putting you through now, make sure it's quick he's a very busy man." Lance was then listening to hold music, every beat of the annoying song making beads of sweat pop up on his forehead.

After what seemed like forever a strong heavy voice answered. "Hello?"

"He-he-hello Sir," He said very nervously. "I ju-just wanted to let you kn-know that the p-pager has been activated in Aldhaven."

"Really?" His voice seemed somewhat surprised, like he wasn't expecting this to happen. "Where in Aldhaven."

"The dot shows that it was activated in the Aldhaven library, he must've talked to the manager. But he is probably moving around, I think we should wait until he stops, so we can get him."

"No, no, that won't be necessary. Just leave it all to me. Thank you for your services, Mr Mitchell, you may now leave."

"O-o-kay." He managed to squeak, he wanted to ask about if he had to come in tomorrow but the boss had already cut the line. Too late.