Free Under Dark Sky Law by Tamara Boyens Page B

of her wig and makeup, her wilted neon Mohawk
flopped backwards across the center of her starkly nude head. She
didn’t feel quite like Xero or Anastasia, and those were two
personas that were not ready to play nice with each other.
    Xero raised her eyebrows and inhaled,
relishing the rich smell of the suite, making sure the enjoyment
showed on her face. “You jealous or something?” she said.
    The recruit’s mouth wrinkled into something
resembling a craggy lemon. “I would never be jealous of something
like you,” he said.
    Xero closed her eyes and let a gregarious
grin plaster itself across her face. “Yeah, good thing, considering
someone like you would never be able to appreciate luxury like this
anyway. It would be a total waste,” she said, not letting her smile
slip for one second.
    The recruit’s fists clenched so hard she
could see the blood draining across his knuckles. “Some people work
for their rewards,” he said almost too quietly to hear.
    Her smile persisted, but any traces of
Anastasia were gone. Her eyes were dead, and the change had an
immediate effect on the recruit. His lemony mouth froze into
fear.
    “I…I didn’t mean it like that,” he said. His
fingers fidgeted inside his pristine white gloves.
    Xero walked towards him, one foot crossed in
front of the other like she was going down a catwalk. The
government issue pumps had enough of a heel, and the military skirt
was short enough that she may as well have been peddling skin for
money. The recruit took a hasty step backwards and tripped on his
own feet once before righting himself against the back wall of the
hallway.
    She advanced until she was just a few inches
from his face and leaned her arm against the gilded wallpaper
beside his head. “I’m pretty sure you meant it just like that,” she
said in a voice that dripped with seduction, but her eyes remained
cold and empty. They were honest eyes, eyes that said she’d slit
his throat, fuck his dying body, and think nothing of it.
    He swallowed, using his eyes to scan both
ways down the hallway, hoping to find backup without having to
chicken out and verbally call for them.
    She cocked her head to the side. “Don’t
worry, I’m not going to hurt you,” she said. “Your own life is
punishment enough.” As much as she would have liked to actually
kick his punk ass to teach him a lesson, it probably wasn’t worth
the paperwork. There were too many other variables at work at the
moment, and in the hotel hallway there were definitely cameras
about. The rest of her permanent detail was downstairs attending to
tactical or administrative details, but they could return at any
moment.
    She pulled away and stood a few feet from him
with her hands on his hips. He made an attempt at straightening
himself out, and ventured one last attempt at redemption. “You’re a
filthy rebel. You don’t deserve any of this,” he said.
    Xero thought of the front of the hotel with
its ornate façade and all the lies it represented. She almost felt
sorry for this young piece of shit. “Honey. You have no idea what I
live through on a daily basis, and you have no idea what awaits you
in the future. If you ever run into me again, you might think about
being nicer. You never know, one of these days I might just end up
being your boss for real,” she said, poked him in the nose, swayed
back into her hotel room, and slammed the door in his face.
    It was another politically questionable
event, but it had felt so good. Totally worth it. Although it was
somewhat frivolous in terms of actual safety, she slipped the chain
lock on the door so that she would at least have a heads up if the
mouthy recruit or some other dick wad decided to bust in on her
while she was trying to relax.
    She leaned her head back against the door and
closed her eyes, overjoyed at finally having some privacy. The room
followed the style of the rest of the hotel—all chrome and soft
blue lights illuminating things that really