Kingsman Return novel Chapter 2

It was a typical winter day in downtown Los Angeles. As it was the eve of the new year, coupled with temperatures that were reaching an unbearable 32 degrees and below, the number of people that could be found on the streets was few.

Everyone was inside their houses and staying warm with their families as they awaited the coming of the new year and anybody that found themselves outside on a day like today could only be said to truly be unfortunate.

The new year was supposed to be a day of hope for everybody, a day where everybody started a new chapter on the story that was their lives, but for Arran, it was a day like any other day, filled with misfortune after misfortune.

Arran as a 19-year-old hormonal teenager had dreams like any other teens his age had. Dreams of picking up girls and establishing a world-class harem, dreams of being every girl's favorite wet dream.

Some would say he had the making of a popular harem king, with great looks and bronze tanned skin reminiscent of an ancient god, powerful and lean limbs with broad, strong shoulders that he could fit into every woman's most embarrassing fantasies.

But, even with all these qualities, misfortune just seems to strike.

Arran came to live in Los Angeles three years ago and although throughout his life, this may not have been the longest he had stayed in a single place, it was by far the most stable and the most normal ever. Well, that was if you didn't count the fact that his parents have been missing for the past 2 years.

Arran's mind was wholly preoccupied right now, reeling from all the things he had learned today.

It wasn't that it was really shocking what he had learned, No, given the kind of life he had lived throughout his short 19 years, it was safe to say that not many things would ever be shocking to him.

What was getting him so worked up was the little mahogany and oak box sitting quietly in his backpack. Ever he received it from the two police officers assigned to his parent's case, his mind and heart had been greatly unsettled.

Thinking about the box, Arran's mind went back to this morning.

As a freshman in college, and with nothing to do during the holidays, Arran made it a point to attend extra-curricular classes with the rest of the destitute and unfortunate ones who for one reason or another chose to do so even though he was not learning anything new. All this in a bid to keep himself busy during this holiday season.

Listening to the 50 something-year-old lecturers droning on and on about certain historic relics, Arran never expected to be called out of class by uniformed police officers, much to the disdain of the hook-nosed old crone of a teacher and the ridiculing and suspicious looks of his classmates.

One could literally feel the contempt on the faces of his course mates and the judgmental look that could only belong to a lecturer who had deemed you as a bad apple and someone not worth saving at all.

After an uneventful ride to the station, Arran had to wait for a very long time before the cops deemed it fit to inform him of the reason he had been called out of class.

After much hemming and hawing, he finally figured it out.