Enemies(26)

“Even after I punched her in the face?” I asked, amused. “Are you sure you can read emotions?”

“But I do ask that you try and keep yourself from doing any more damage to your image,” he said with another sigh. “Is it not enough that you already have to combat the negative reputation that being a succubus gives you in the meta-human world? Need you add more difficulty on top of that?”

I reached for the door, realizing that if I waited, I would be continuing to let him dictate to me where I went and when, just as I had been since I got here. I opened it, then wheeled around. “Well, you know, when you’re surrounded by enemies—or monsters, if you prefer,” he gave a slight roll of his eyes as his expression sank, “it’s probably not a bad thing if they end up hating and fearing you.”

“Yes, well,” Janus said as I closed the door behind me, “you seem very adept at finding out, no matter where you go.”

Kat was waiting just outside the glass door, and looked at me warily over the red-stained tissue she held over her nose. “That hurt, you know.”

“I know.”

“Did he talk you through it?” she asked, eyeing me as she dabbed at the blood on her upper lip. “Are you over it now?”

“He walked me through it,” I said coolly. “Turns out, when I punched you before, it wasn’t because I was upset about you betraying the Directorate, and by extension, me. It was because I was super pissed that you betrayed Scott by sleeping with Janus.” I gave her a broad, faux smile, and she gave me an uneasy one of her own. Lulled. Perfect.

I punched her in the nose again, and once more, she didn’t see it coming. This punch wasn’t as hard, but it didn’t have to be since her nose was already broken. She let out a pained gasp, landed flat on her ass once more, her eyes already shut and welling with tears. “That one was for me,” I said, strolling back toward the elevator. “The good news is, I think we can call it done; I’ll let you off the hook for betraying the Directorate seeing how things turned out later.”

“Thank you,” I heard her mumble before she slumped to the ground, holding the already-stained tissue to her nose and letting out a pitiful sob as I walked away.





Chapter 11




I wasn’t sure what to expect when I made it back to the elevator. It seemed like the direction to head, since I didn’t really feel a compelling need to walk around the bullpen to tour the Omega operation. The sound of paper being shuffled produced a feeling of boredom in me, and as the sun made its way across the floors from the windows, I realized that if I were a cat—like Bast, maybe—I would probably curl up in one of the shafts of sunlight and nap the day away. Something about the knowledge that it would be months yet before I got my shot at Winter was producing a complete lack of urgency or desire in me to do much of anything.

Also, I was genuinely tired. More tired than I could recall being at noon on a weekday, ever. Especially since I’d slept for something like fifteen hours. Being a meta usually meant I was over-the-top filled with energy. The two punches I had just delivered to Kat notwithstanding, right now I felt like a kitten could win a wrestling match with me. Before I had a chance to ponder that energy drain, there was a stir behind me. I turned and heard the whispers from the cube-dwellers. I’d heard them before, just after I punched Kat, but this was different, something else, a reckless energy running through the room. I stopped to listen, but the urgent whispers were buried under the ambient noise to a degree that made it impossible for me to tell what was being said, just that it was important.

I stretched to my tiptoes to look back at Janus’s office. He was there, the door pulled to, with Bast inside with him. I was surprised it wasn’t Kat, since I had just given her another drubbing in full sight of him, but she was nowhere to be seen, presumably still on the floor in a heap, and he was totally focused on whatever Bast was telling him. He glanced away from her to look across the room and caught me watching. He didn’t offer a gesture to the effect, but I knew he was bidding me to stay where I was. Something was happening.

I felt anchored to the spot, and I wondered if it was his doing. The two of them finished their conversation and then he was out the door with so much urgency that I feared he would break the glass. He cut a path through the middle of the cubicles, as dour and serious as I had seen him. “Come with me,” he said when he reached me but didn’t stop, heading instead for the elevator that I had been going for only a minute earlier.

“Why?” I asked as I fell in behind him. “Was two punches too much?”