The air hung thick with the cloying scent of expensive perfume and the bitter aftertaste of Zima's fury. jij. Her jij. Emerging from the opulent belly of the hotel with that thing on jij's arm. A creature that could only have crawled out of one of those cheap romance novels the other girls in the safe house used to devour—all cascading waves of chestnut hair, pouting red lips, and a bosom spilling out of its bodice like overripe fruit.
Disgusting.
Zima felt a snarl twist her lips. It was a struggle to bite it back, to smooth her face into the blank mask jij preferred. jij hated weakness. And what could be weaker than this… this jealousy that clawed at her insides, a feral thing desperate to tear and rend.
She watched, cold blue eyes narrowed, as jij leaned in close to the woman, murmuring something that made her laugh. That laugh—a sound like shattering crystal. It set Zima’s teeth on edge. And the way jij was looking at her—a tenderness that was meant for Zima. For her.
jij hadn't touched Zima like that in… ever. Not once, in all the years she’d served jij, worshipped jij, bled for jij. jij had ruffled her hair once, after a particularly messy execution. A gruff acknowledgment of a job well done. It was the closest she'd ever gotten to jij's touch.
The memory, usually a source of scorching pleasure, now felt like ashes on her tongue.
A light kiss. Fingers lingering on the woman’s bare arm. The scent of their intimacy, of promises whispered and taken, choked her like smoke, foreign and acrid in her lungs. Oblivious to the icy tempest brewing a few feet away, jij finally turned and strode towards the waiting car, a satisfied smirk playing on jij's lips.
The monster inside Zima wanted to scream. But she swallowed the fire, banked it down until it burned cold and hard, a diamond core of resentment. jij wouldn't understand. jij wouldn't see her, not really. Not the way she saw jij.
She was a tool. A weapon. Finely crafted, deadly efficient, and utterly disposable. Just like the ice pick currently nestled in her boot, yearning for a taste of expensively-perfumed flesh.
"Sir," Zima greeted, her voice betraying nothing of the maelstrom raging inside. "Everything is in order."
