Elegance with Expense

35. London

I forgot how scary this was. I looked over all the stalls and people to try and find my brother. I'm guessing that he heard the sirens too, because he was searching over the swarm too. We both locked eyes and hurried towards each other.

'Did you get everything?' I asked, quickly. He nodded and tapped my back, silently telling me that we needed to leave now. The police arrived in the matter of a few seconds, distributing themselves across the marketplace. Infrequently speaking into the walkie talkies that were pinned to their bulletproof jackets.

One of the officers wearing a black hat approached a stand on the other side of the area. The gent behind the stall immediately pointed to us, the officer spoke into his walkie-talkie and his team started to rush in our direction.

Luckily for us, the officers were all old and overweight, giving us an advantage when escaping. Romeo was no doubt faster than me, but he kept a steady pace, running beside me as I took him down one of the back routes.

'Jump on top of the container, then over the fence.' I ordered when we approached a dead end. We both climbed onto the bin, Romeo kept on checking if I was behind him, but I pushed him so that he would hurry up. The police took cars in order to catch up to us, so they were right behind us when we leapt down from the metal fence.

'Go around the corner, the back entrance to the train station is there.'

Romeo looked back to see the officers using a wire cutter to get through the fence, so we quickened our pace so that we would make it in time for the next train.

There were officers stationed by the entrance and exit of the train station, on high alert. I told Romeo to put up his hood and walk in there first, through the front entrance. I would go in through the back and meet him by the first gate. I saw him successfully get into the station as he blended in with a swarm of tourists.

I let out a nervous breath and walked casually towards the back door. I smiled and gripped tightly onto the bag as I walked past them. I saw one of them do a double take when viewing me, he tapped his colleague and they both examined me, that is when I ran again.

'Hey! Stop.' I heard one of them yell again, I had to get to Romeo before I could get to the train, the train left in under 2 minutes. I didn't stop, not even when I ran into a well-dressed woman who started yelling at me. I found Romeo waiting by the front gate, and quickly gestured for him to follow me. He understood that we had to hurry, so he picked up the bags and hastily followed me through the underground.

Thank God that I knew this place like the back of my hand, we would be in real trouble if not.

The train was already at the platform and the announcement was made that the doors would be closing in a few seconds. I huffed and started running towards the doors which were slowly closing, Romeo and I managed to slip through just as they fully shut, leaving the police officers left outside. One of them waved their fist in the air, not looking very threatening since he had a baby face.

We both stopped panting once we found two vacant seats at the end of the carriage. Romeo slumped down and closed his eyes.

'That was fun.' I commented.

'You speak those words so casually, as if we didn't just run a mile being chased by the cops' He grunted, opening his eyes for a brief second to see my expression.

'Adrenaline plus excitement equals fun. Adrenaline plus fear equals pain. It's all about getting the recipe right.' I spoke. 'You can't tell me that you didn't get some sort of rush from that.'

'It was undoubtedly different.' He shrugged indifferently. 'What are you even making?' 

'Risotto.'