Mariana casually approached the redhead to engage in a conversation. "Couldn't help but overhear... Friends flaking on ya, huh?" she said.
"Oh. Um, not quite," the redhead unreadily replied, "It's more some coworkers who I'm supposed to be meeting here and I sorta want to get it over with, but they've told me we'd be meeting up here at the bar, but I guess they changed the plan without telling me..." she trailed off.
"Oh? Where do you work?"
At this, the redhead froze up a second in thought. Dead giveaway; clearly trying to think up a lie, but for the moment, Mariana wanted to see where this might go.
"Um... WcDolan's. It's a... fast food employee meetup. Silly, I know. That's why I want to get it over with, heheheh..."
"And how many coworkers do you think actually go to this thing?" Mariana asked as if she actually bought a word of the redhead's terrible attempt at a lie.
"I, uh... dunno. Pretty much all of us."
"Okay, well nice chat. I didn't catch your name by the way."
"Oh, I'm Lydia. Uh, nice to meet you."
"I'm Mariana, and-" Suddenly Mariana got a stern look on her face, "-you'd better play along with this if you know what's good for you, shade."
"Huh?!" Lydia barely had time to process her shock before she received a hard slap across her face. She stared back at Mariana, slack-jawed.
"Oh. Em. Gee. How dare you kiss my boyfriend, Lydia! You're so dead!" Mariana yelled, putting on her best prissy valley girl impression, and attracting the eyes and ears of several surrounding beach-goers. Before Lydia had a chance to respond, Mariana had tackled her onto the sand, pulling at her hair. Some passerby began to wolf whistle and chant "Catfight! Catfight!" as Mariana landed slightly painful, but mostly ineffectual punches on Lydia as part of the act. Eventually though, Mariana put her into a very real headscissor hold, with her strong thighs wrapped around the redheaded shade's thin neck. "Had enough, bitch?" Mariana said. "I'll let you go if you beg for mercy."
Lydia could barely breath, let alone speak with her windpipe constricted so much, but she did let out a faint, "U-Uncle..."
"I can't hear you!" Mariana said as the crowd whooped and hollered, clearly on her side luckily.
"I... give up. Mercy..." Lydia, wheezed.
Mariana let go. Lydia, who was dazed, confused, embarrassed, and very out of breath, panted and heaved. Mariana leaned in over to her ear and whispered, "follow me to the out of order restroom right now, and we'll have a private conversation there," and then helped the dazed thug back onto her feet by grabbing her by the armpits and forcefully lifting her up, followed by practically dragging her to the restroom with her. She ducked under the 'out of order' tape and pulled Lydia in with her.
"No more games now. You're going to tell me exactly how many shades are here or you're gonna have a bad time," Mariana demanded as she shoved Lydia up to the wall, pulled out her stiletto, and held it to her throat.
"Okay, okay!" Lydia said with her hands up, "Counting me, there's five! Two are waiting for me at the west end for an intel exchange, and the other two are should be finishing up a contraband exchange at the east end. Guns, drugs, that sort of stuff."
"So I'd assume they're armed?"
"At the contraband exchange, yes. At the intel exchange, no."
"Well I suppose you're no longer useful. What ever should I do with you?" Mariana said, pushing the knife teasingly closer to Lydia's neck.
Lydia gulped. "Please..." she simply said.
In truth, Mariana wasn't sure what to do with Lydia. She needed at least one captive, whom she and the other agents could keep in their custody for a while for interrogation, and Lydia could be the one, or she could simply kill her and capture one of the others. Mariana had a button to push on her phone to send the location of unconscious or dead goons so the other agents near the scene could quickly rush in and clean up the trash, but Mariana first needed to know whether to kill or knock out this thug and how she should do so. She could even just find something to tie her up with if she so pleased. The options were near limitless and she enjoyed holding the fate of this scared beach-cutie in her hands. In the end, she decided to...
(Choice time, yay)
