Omega(86)
“Nice,” I said. “Listen, Josh, Joshua, Mr. Harding, whatever. I’m a prickly person, okay? I’ve had a few...shall we say...incidents here at the Directorate, some things that might have turned a few people against me. Now, maybe I reacted poorly to those setbacks, maybe I could have used more social skills to smooth things over. But no, I went in a different direction and embraced it. I’ve got a circle of friends, people I trust. There’s only enough room for a few on that ship at any point in time. Understand...it’s nothing personal. Forgive me for my limitations, and I’ll forgive you for imposing on my personal time and space.”
He looked at me, then surveyed the area around us. “Personal space? I’m like ten feet away from you.”
“To a succubus,” I said, taking another slow, casual sip of my coffee, “that’s like an inch. I could take your soul from here.”
He cracked a smile. “Now you’re just lying. You have to touch a person to use your power.”
“Damn. And I was hoping the rumor mill would spread one about me that I could take souls with a look. It’d keep people out of my way.”
He shrugged. “You really want people out of your way bad enough that you’re okay with them thinking things that aren’t true about you?”
I felt my coffee grow cold in front of me, and I struggled to fake a smile. “Look, I’m a soul-taker...being a succubus is kind of a metaphor for my personality, too. It makes my life easier, having everyone think I’m a badass who just doesn’t care.”
“Huh,” he said, and he didn’t really let off with the eye contact, which was annoying in a vaguely Old-Man-Winter-Jr. sort of way, “I just thought it made you kind of lonely. But hey,” he said, and smiled under the glasses and bushy hair, “I get it. Your boat is full. I’ll leave you alone. But...” he smiled. “If you ever maybe get a space open on that limited engagement boat of yours...I might know someone that would clamor to get on it.”
“Purely out of concern for my loneliness and well-being, I’m sure.”
“Hell, no,” he said. “I kinda got a crush on you. Are you blind or something?”
I rolled my eyes. “Kid, my touch kills people. I’ve been trying politely to tell you to ‘spin off’ this whole time—”
“That was ‘politely’? You need to read How to Win Friends and Influence People.”
“I’ve never read that one. But I have seen the movie Die Hard a good dozen times,” I said with a little sarcasm, “and it strikes me that it might be more useful in my line of work.” I waved my hand for him to scram. “I appreciate your well meaning attempts to ingratiate yourself with me, but people who get close to me do so at their own risk. And, as mentioned, I do have a boyfriend. And he is...considerably older than you. No offense. So...yeah.” I smiled at him. “Thank you, Josh Harding.”
He shrugged like he didn’t care. “Don’t be a stranger, Sienna Nealon.” He walked away, and disappeared out the doors of the cafeteria. I hadn’t met a lot of adults who carried themselves with his level of swagger, let alone seen it in someone younger than myself.
I finished my coffee in two swallows and made my way out of the cafeteria a few minutes later, tracing a path across the grounds, ignoring the blustery wind that fought me the whole way. I entered the lobby of the headquarters building to find it quiet, the usual hum of workers absent. I stood by the elevator bank alone, and rode up in the car by myself. When the doors opened on the cubicle farm on the fourth floor, I saw no one; I half expected a lone tumbleweed to blow by as I stepped out. The overhead fluorescent lights weren’t even on.