Elena Machado had excelled in her Ju-Jitsu class. She was hands down the best female student ever to come out of the school. Her instructor Mario Polanki had begged her to start competing but she had taken up the sport for her job.
It wasn't the job Elena would have chosen if given a choice but her lack of English skills had kept her out of the police academy. She had moved to the US from San Paolo Brazil at seventeen, Just in time to flunk out of high school for not knowing the language, even though she had been an exceptional student back home.
Elena's family had been forced to move to the US as political refugees when her father had been targeted by the drug gangs from the favelas on the outskirts of her middle-class neighborhood. Her father had been in charge of a band of soldier police that coordinated commando raids into the slums controlled by the gangs. Elena had wanted to be a police in the worst way just like her father. She had trained hard in her teens in both Capoeira and in tonfa fighting.
Portuguese was enough like Spanish that Elena was able to read the Mexican wrestling magazines and saw an ad for a bodyguard school in Arizona. What Elena had going for her was her youthful appearance. At nineteen she could still pass for a high school student. She finally got an opportunity to attend high school. This time as bodyguard posing as a student. Her first assignment was a Muslim daughter of a construction magnate from Dubai. The cover was pretty solid. Her dark complexion made it believable that she was also a Muslim with the headscarf over her beautiful long black hair.
Elena had to walk a fine line between providing protection to her charge and stifling her charge's personal freedom. While her first priority was to protect the young Muslim woman it wouldn't take much to anger her charge and get fired by the father. The client had little respect for women and no patience for any type of failure. Elena was basically at the mercy of her charge's mood with regard to keeping her job. Despite the steep learning curve Elena managed to walk the line between allowing the high school student to experience high school life and enter into dangerous situations. Elena did a decent job of pretending to be a high school student. She didn't attract too much attention from the teachers or the other students. She did an exceptional job of not being exceptional in any way. It helped that she was playing the role of a repressed foreign student.
The job had been fairly uneventful and ended when the daughter had graduated and been married off to an influential member of military back home. A move that benefited her father's business interests greatly.
Now in her mid-twenties, Elena had outgrown the ability to pass for a high school student. While she could have changed her M.O. to providing protective services to college-aged clients, The fact that she had blossomed into a stunning woman made that a less than viable option. She had made enough as a bodyguard to build up enough savings to try go back to school. Her English was now good enough to give a criminal justice degree a real try.
Elena was three or four years older than most of her fellow classmates in her Intro to Criminal Justice class. The first thing she noticed when entering the room was how few women were in her class. Of the forty or so students in the class, only eight of them were female. Elena could tell by the way the male classmates were looking at her they expected her to respond to their presence like a jackpot winner. As though she should be excited in the presence of so many studs.
Elena was familiar with the demeanor as her father had also been a cop. many of the men drawn to the profession did so with the expectation of a constant stream of badge bunnies They were common in Brazil too but it was different because of how militaristic the Brazilian police force could be. It was not uncommon for the police to armor up, put on masks, and charge into the favelas under a black flag and rumble with the drug gangs controlling the neighborhoods. The police groupie types were often used as bait by the drug lords to lure unsuspecting police into traps in revenge for the favela raids.
Elena had heard the horror stories from her father about policemen having their whole families murdered in retaliation for neighborhood incursions there home addresses learned from their mistresses and given to the drug lords for a price. For that reason, Elena had a bad taste in her mouth when it came to badge bunnies or holster sniffers or whatever women who chased after cops were called. Among the females in the class, it was obvious that some were there just for the opportunity to be around future cops.
It was pretty obvious that these girls were going to become what they used to call go around girls back in San Paolo. The types of girls that went around to every guy in the group eventually. By the way, most of the men in her class were looking at her it was obvious her classmates had assumed she also fit into the cop groupie category. It was more wishful thinking on their part as Elena was captivating with her curvy physique. That Elena also possessed an exotic South American beauty had made her something of a sexual curiosity. Most of the class was white. There were only five black guys in the class and no other women of color.
There was much attention paid to her as she chose a seat the first day of class as the male students assumed whoever she sat with would have the inside track of getting the first crack at the Brazillian beauty. Intro to Criminal Justice was not part of the junior college's actual police academy program it was an elective credit designed to weed out students who weren't police academy material. The class while stricter than most college classes did not have the same quasi-military discipline as the academy courses with the strict uniform requirements of academy students. Intro to Criminal Justice students dressed like normal college students.
If you asked her why she chose the desk next to Magnus Nordgraad, Elena wouldn't have had an answer. In truth it because he looked like an "Indio" from back home in Brazil. Elena had been in the U.S. long enough to assume that Magnus was probably Mexican with his dark round features and squat physique. That there was a possibility that unlike the other males in the class he wouldn't be as quick to treat her like curiosity or a box to check off on a sexual bucket list was enough for her to choose to sit next to him. Also as she wasn't particularly attracted to him she felt him harmless as there was little chance of sex between the two of them. Or so she thought.
Magnus smiled at her as she took her seat and Elena almost rethought her decision to sit with him. His green eyes lit up when he saw her. They were a stunning shade of emerald she had never seen before. On his round native face, they really stook out. Elena could swear they sparkled even in the institutional fluorescent lighting of the classroom. It was pretty obvious that Magnus wasn't so harmless. Elena would have moved to another seat if it wouldn't have been so conspicuous. She could tell Magnus had a sexual energy about him. He leaned in close and Elena felt the hair on her neck stand up as his weight bent the arm of his desk.
"You wouldn't happen to be a nursing student, would you?" He asked in a voice just above a whisper in an accent Elena had never heard and couldn't believe was coming from the man next to her like a Mexican vampire.
Elena sat in stunned silence as she tried to figure out the oddity that was the man next to her. Nothing about him added up. He was way too confident for a guy as unassuming looking as he was. His quiet voice didn't match his demeanor or his wide frame. His accent seemed almost made up. When Elena didn't respond he continued.
"I was told if you want to be successful in junior college sit with nursing students. They are like Navy Seals of junior college." He said again very quietly.
"What?" Elena asked not processing all of what the man was saying.
"For most junior college students, its just high school with smoking. For nursing students is the real deal. If you want good marks you sit with the nurses. Are you a nursing student?" Magnus asked again.
"This class is for people who want to become police officers. You're not going to find any nursing students in here." Elena responded starting to understand the man's weird way of speaking.
"Oh okay, then I guess you can sit there then if no nursing students are coming." Magnus said in a way that took Elena a second to recognize as jest.
Magnus' eyes lit up with mirth when Elena's face registered that he was joking with her. He introduced himself and Elena briefly did likewise before the class began. The instructor began at a breakneck pace to prepare the students for the pacing of the actual academy classrooms. Students were going to be exected to come to class fully prepared or expect to be bounced from the classroom immediately. While not necessarily a formula for retaining the most qualified cadets it was how the academy would instill discipline and respect for the chain of command in law enforcement.
After a whirlwind of information, the class ended and the students were expected to take a syllabus from the instructor's desk. Elena rushed to the front to get hers. Magnus was slower and got caught in the tangle of students mingling after the first class. A group of sharks circled him eager to discuss the Latin hottie he had been sitting with eager for any details or insights he could share should he pass on her or move too slow.
Elena heard a bit of the conversation. Nothing from Magnus as his speaking voice was so quiet. She could tell the group around him was getting annoyed with his low volume and crazy accent. They asked Magnus where he was from. Elena couldn't hear his response but she did hear the rude follow up.
"Where the fuck is Nuuk?" he heard one student ask rather rudely.
