Chapter 34: Frozen Reflections: Isabella's Encounter with a Mysterious Stranger
I was in the same usual routine as Isabella always had.
Battle with the alarm and curse the universe for making her wake up early for work before staying in bed for a couple of more minutes as she always set her alarm 30 mins earlier than she needed so that she can lie around and just think, or use the phone while in bed. She had broken her phone yesterday, but she bought a new one, and she now had a new number.
It was annoying as hell to have to install some stuff and reach out to some friends to tell them she had a new number, but oh well, what can you do?
She did have to admit that she acted a bit aggressively and thoughtlessly yesterday. She just got angry and didn't even think about what she was about to do, she just did it.
She got up from the bed and go to the bathroom to brush her teeth, checked herself out in the mirror for a bit while still only in panties, and then put on a T-shirt and have breakfast while browsing through the internet, maybe looking at some interesting articles, seeing what her friends had been doing and so on.
Apply some light makeup, get dressed, and go out of the apartment.
The smell of the lemons that hung from the two trees right outside her apartment always made her feel relaxed as she waved to her neighbors and went to work.
Before work, she made sure to walk past two houses. One house was a house of a regular that came to the café every single day. The old wrench was the most obnoxious person alive, and Isabella made sure to pass by it and use her ability to freeze her front door, well, she would freeze the doorknob, making it impossible for the old wrench to get out for a good half an hour to an hour.
She had heard her talk numerous times about how annoyed she was that her front door was not working properly every single morning. She had even called the people from maintenance over, but they saw no issues at all, just a bit of rust that was inside, but other than that, the door and the doorknob were fine.
The other person was her old neighbor. It was a guy in his 30s who was constantly hitting on her last year and upon being denied many times, he decided to stop and make sure to taunt and act passive-aggressive toward Isabella at all times.
Since she didn't want anybody to know that she had powers, she started playing her own tricks. She would occasionally use her powers to freeze parts of his car, she would use the ice to even smash some of his windows sometimes, and the best thing was that she would do it from the comfort of her own place, making it impossible for anyone to even suspect her.
She now simply passed next to his house and would use her ability to freeze his water hose and do the same to his windows.
Isabella hummed during her trip to the café before entering it and getting a coffee first since she had about 20 minutes before her shift started. She would sit at the bar of the café and look at her phone whilst drinking her coffee and then start working.
She had worked for about 10 minutes, and there weren't a lot of people present, in fact, there were only three people who had already gotten what they ordered. Usually, more people would start arriving in slightly less than an hour, and after that, there would barely be any time for her or her colleagues to even rest.
Ding Ding!
The bell that was right behind the door rang as a fourth customer entered, a person Isabella had never seen before. He was tall, his face was nice to look at and he had a sharp jawline. He merely looked at Isabella and her colleagues and gave them a warm smile before sitting down at an empty table.
Isabella went to the man to get his order.
"Hello sir, what can I get you."
"I'll have the croissant and a double espresso, and if you don't mind, I would like a couple of minutes of your time, Miss Isabella."
Isabella's eyes widened slightly as she looked at the man.
'A stalker, or maybe some guy that had noticed me from somewhere, well, that would pretty much be a stalker as well, but why is his voice a bit familiar to me?'
"Sorry sir, do we know each other?" Isabella asked the man who smiled at her brightly.
"Not really, but we did have a phone call yesterday, we didn't get to finish it, unfortunately, so I decided to come here in hopes of continuing our conversation," Carl said with a friendly smile as Isabella's eyes turned serious as she stared at him.
"You're the guy from yesterday, the handler, right?"
"Yes, it is nice to meet you in person, Miss Conti," Carl said as he felt the temperature around him slowly drop. It wasn't just him, the people in the café were able to feel how the temperature suddenly started getting lower.
"Miss Conti, there are civilians around us, as well as your colleagues, they will be caught in the crossfire, please do calm yourself."
"Is that a threat?"
"No, I have no intention of fighting you, or harming you or the people here in any way, I'm saying this so you don't unintentionally do something that you would regret for a long time, I don't think you're the kind of person that liked to wantonly slaughter people, right?" Carl asked with a smile which only pissed Isabella more.
But he was right, she had to control herself, otherwise, she could potentially end up killing everybody present, and she doubted that she could easily take on Carl, who knew how strong she was and had still decided to come here and meet with her.
"I'll bring you your order immediately, sir," Isabella said with a smile as the temperature returned to normal, which made everybody present confused about what had happened.
Isabella made her way to the bar and told the bartender the order, and he quickly got it ready. It was obvious that he was quite experienced. While he was making the coffee, Isabella took a croissant, well, she was about to, before realizing something and sighing before going back to Carl.
"Hey, what kind of croissant do you want?" Isabella's voice was ice cold, and thanks to the fact Carl was sitting in a corner, with nobody near him, nobody heard her, otherwise her colleagues, as well as some regular customers, would notice that something was not quite right.
"With chocolate," Carl said with a smile as he looked at Isabella. He had to admit, up close, she was even more beautiful than he thought. With clear blue eyes, black hair, sharp features, and slightly thicker-than-average lips, her face alone would be enough for her to get a job as a model.
And that was without even mentioning her body, which didn't lose out to her face in the slightest. She was about 175 meters tall, she had muscular legs, not bulky, just enough muscles on them to be noticed if she was wearing a skirt or tight jeans or pants.
She had an hourglass figure, and her chest, although not as large as Carla's, was still relatively large and supple.
Suddenly, Carl felt his hands go cold as Isabella smirked at him.
"Don't check me out, I don't like it, especially not from a guy like you," Isabella said before turning around and getting his croissant while Carl rubbed his hands in order to warm them up.
'Her ability is even stronger than I thought, probably strong enough to be a B-grade.' Carl thought as he looked at Isabella as she told something to her colleagues before coming over with his order, as well as a second coffee for herself.
"I thought I had already given you my answer, why are you here, wasn't I clear enough?"
"Or do you perhaps wish to blackmail me from up close, betting on the fact that I wouldn't hurt the people inside this café?" Isabella coldly asked Carl before taking a sip of her coffee while Carl sighed.
"Nothing of the sort," Carl said before taking a sip of his coffee as well and placing it down before looking straight into Isabella's eyes.
"They're so blue."
"What?" Isabella asked Carl who had unintentionally said his thoughts out loud before shaking his head with a chuckle.
'Since I have already said it, why not roll with it?'
"Your eyes, they're so blue, very beautiful."
"Are you actually trying to flirt with me or something?" Isabella asked him in disbelief as Carl suddenly chuckled.
"No, I was merely making an observation, I apologize."
"Let me introduce myself first," Carl said before smiling at Isabella.
( AN: Hey you guys, so I wrote this chapter in the third person, I'm honestly debating whether or not to actually change the writing style and write entirely in the third person right now, I'm writing my other two novels like that, so I don't know if that would be better for the overall quality of this one, do give me your thoughts about it! )
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