29. Beck
BECK
VINCENT LIMA – THE FIRE
Gina spent a good hour working on Adelaide’s hair, then a further thirty minutes monologuing all the things Addie had missed on the outside over the last eighteen months.
Which celebrities were dating, who had died and how, and which new movies had come out that G recommended—all the tearjerkers; the ones that didn’t end in happily ever afters.
Ugh.
Don’t get me wrong, those stories are good on occasion—but we see enough death and darkness in our real world; we don’t need it in our fictional, escapism-driven lives, too.
When G was done, Addie could have slid right in with those celebrities on their red carpets.
Her captivating white-blonde tresses now fell to her mid-back in masterful forties-style waves, reminiscent of days long since passed—when Marilyn Monroe and Rita Hayworth were the epitome of beauty.
Not like today’s gaunt, malnourished, catwalk trends.
She cleared her throat, somehow appearing before me like an apparition. I lurched to my feet, much to the amusement of the black-haired, severe-fronting Gina.
“What did you say?” I asked, rubbing the back of my neck.
Adelaide frowned, her eyes narrowing like she was trying to see through me.
Maybe she could.
Maybe she’d be the only one to ever see through all the layers I adorned.
“I asked what was next,” she said, chewing the inside of her cheek.
“Don’t do that. You’ll get an ulcer,” I scolded, evidently surprising her. “Next you’ve got Marie for resets, who I believe is next door?” I directed the question to Gina, who nodded, already sweeping up the remnants of Adelaide’s trimmed ends.
The strangest urge to pluck a lock off the floor and keep it flooded me, but I resisted, shaking it off like an errant mosquito.
Addie winced. “Dare I ask what resets means?”
My face twisted into a mirrored expression. Nobody liked resets. Least of all me.
“Why don’t I let Marie explain it?”
She sighed, reaching for the shiny gold door handle and holding it open for me to duck through first.
Ugh, no—that’s my job. Her action offended me so badly that I actually scoffed, grabbed the door above her head, and motioned for her to exit. I refused to budge until she let go—and she only did so after Gina laughed—after a solid minute of us exchanging increasingly annoyed expressions.
G’s deep-throated cackle cut through the tension like a warm knife through butter. “A word of advice, Agent Sinclair?” she offered with a grin. “If that one is willingly being helpful, you’d do well to let him—otherwise he can make himself very irksome indeed.”
Still glaring at me, Addie’s pleasant tone was unpleasantly at odds with her expression. “Believe me, Gina, I am well acquainted with that fact already.”
Before I had a chance to even act offended, my mind saved me the trouble by flashing an image of an ice-and-water-filled bucket.
I bit my lip. Point taken.
“Thanks for your time, Gina. I hope I’ll get to see you again sometime,” Addie called before dashing out the door and rounding to the right.
“Sooner than you think, child,” G replied, too softly for Addie to hear, but pointed enough for me to. “Look after that one, Beck. She’s got exactly the right amount of spirit to do well, or land herself in a whole host of trouble.”
My lips flattened in a line. “I’m well aware of that fact, too. Take care of yourself, G.”
“You too, Beck.”
I followed Addie out into the hallway and closed the salon door softly behind me.
She knocked on the door right next to Gina’s, the one with a metallic silver number four glued onto it.
Before she’d even had a chance to get to the third rap, the door swung inwards and a tall, thin woman with greying hair beckoned us in.
“You’re late,” Marie barked, snicking the door shut.
“I hate when I get Gina’s clients. They’re always late.
” She then passed a thin white blanket to Addie, nodded at the aesthetician bed behind her, and snapped the pristine clinician’s curtain closed around her.
“Remove all clothes and jewellery, place them on the table by the wall, then lie down belly up on the bed, covering everything except your face.”
“Um, what for?” Addie’s confusion prickled my skin. But I could hear the sound of shifting fabric anyway, telling me she would follow Academy orders no matter what it cost her.
Good. That was good. That could keep her alive.
Marie scoffed. “Are you telling me that no one informed you what this appointment would entail?” She punctuated her question with a sharp glare aimed at my head, jagged enough to inflict pain.
“This is a reset, as in factory reset, meaning your body is going to be stripped of any unwanted marring—be they hair, scar, mole, freckle, or birthmark.”
“Except for this little tattoo, right?” She sighed through the curtain. “You can come in now. I’m ready.”
Marie nodded, looking impressed for the first time I’d known her. “Let’s get started then. Agent Beckett, you can stand there and look pretty all you like, or you can wait in the hall.”
“Sorry, Marie, it’s gonna be looking pretty. Varco gave us strict orders not to let her out of our sight for the duration of Swallow Season.”
As in, until Addie had undergone every element of bodily preparation and completed every extra lesson in seduction and sexual subterfuge. Unfortunately, we were just getting started.
Marie harrumphed, then ducked behind the curtain.
I hated doing it, but I cracked it open just an inch—just enough to see an anxious sliver of Addie’s face, unobstructed by the blanket.
Marie wasted no time. She systematically waxed every stray hair across Addie’s face, ignoring the flickers of pain crossing it in waves. Then lifted a small electronic device emblazoned with the AevumTech logo to Addie’s button nose, readying to steal every freckle that adorned it.
Something panged beneath my sternum.
“Leave them,” I ordered.
“You know I can’t,” Marie replied, no-nonsense.
“I’ll deal with the administrative fallout. Tell them the machine is broken.”
“But it’s not—”
Before I could even consider the consequences, I barged into the tiny area, snatched it from her grip, and threw it on the floor. Shards of plastic exploded outwards in a spray of white, and the whirring of the machine died in splutters.
“It is now,” I growled, exiting and drawing the curtain—mostly—shut.
Marie stammered something about expenses and manners, but I ignored her, focusing instead on Adelaide’s stunned but affected expression.
I could not stand idly by while Blackwing removed every trace of who Adelaide Sinclair was before they set her loose. She would still have to become someone entirely other in order to do the job selected for her, but I couldn’t let them take the pieces of her that still remained.
The Academy had taken enough from her already. And it would still take more yet—things I couldn’t stop, wheels already in motion. But this? This I could prevent.
Marie finished the appointment in silence—tight-lipped and seething. She wrenched the wax strips off Addie’s body more aggressively than her vocation required, only cutting it out when I quite literally growled at her—like a goddamn fucking animal.
I might have just lost Marie her job. But if the alternative was Addie losing out, then I’d do it again without hesitation.
This place had taken more than enough from us both, and I was about done pandering to it.