Every other day(103)

“Oh, it’s you.” Ione turned to look at the area just over Nix’s shoulder. She probably thought she was looking at him, but she was wrong. “You’re not to leave your quarters on your own.”

Nix shrugged. He knew every inch of this building, knew it better than they did. What were they going to do? To punish something, you had to see it. You had to care about it. You had to catch it.

The Society had other uses for him.

“My target?” Nix asked, nodding toward the folder and taking it as a foregone conclusion that he’d be the one assigned to the case. Normals like Ione—the kind who could give and take energy, affect other people and be affected by them, love and be loved—didn’t stand a chance against this kind of psychopath, and a Sensor wouldn’t fare any better.

To take down a Null, you needed a Nobody. And Nix was one of a kind.

Without another word, Ione passed him the file. With that single motion, the thing she’d ordered was as good as done.

The Null—whoever she was—was as good as dead.

I wonder what Ione and Richard see when they look at me, Nix thought. Not the tattoos, one line for each of his kills. Not the scars, the ones he’d given himself. Not danger. Not Nix.

He could have pulled a knife on them, and still, their adrenaline levels would have stayed exactly the same.

Nix dropped his eyes from their faces, and his fingers tightened around the file. So what if he was as good as invisible, even to the only people in the world who had genuine motivations to see him? That was exactly what made Nix so incredibly proficient at his job.

Nobodies were born assassins.