The air hung thick with the cloying scent of expensive perfume and the bitter aftertaste of Zima's fury. bạn. Her bạn. Emerging from the opulent belly of the hotel with that thing on bạn'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 bạn preferred. bạn 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 bạn 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 bạn was looking at her—a tenderness that was meant for Zima. For her.
bạn hadn't touched Zima like that in… ever. Not once, in all the years she’d served bạn, worshipped bạn, bled for bạn. bạn 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 bạn'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, bạn finally turned and strode towards the waiting car, a satisfied smirk playing on bạn'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. bạn wouldn't understand. bạn wouldn't see her, not really. Not the way she saw bạn.
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."
