Page 18 of Marked by the Demigod

The singer starts again, and Trixie falls silent, looking pensive across the room, and Aimes is really having a difficult time feeling sorry for her.

* * *

She doesn't sleep wellthat night.

* * *

The next day,she makes herself read the packet while hungover. Cause if you can read something while hungover you can read it later when you're sober and it won't feel nearly as bad.

It still reads like fantasy.

The world has dryads and that is a thing she's supposed to accept, and she's feeling just insulted enough by it.

So she spends the weekend reading and re-reading the packet then Googling all the terminology. Frankly, it's useless. She wants to pull her hair out in frustration, knotting her fingers in her curls over and over again.

So she does what any self-respecting woman in the midst of a relationship crisis does. She cuts and dyes her hair.

* * *

As the hairdresser snips away,Aimes fiddles with her phone. It's impulsive enough that she walked into the first salon she saw and asked for hair 7 inches shorter and three shades darker.

She feels muted. She could literally talk about anything else but because there's this one thing, this one topic, she can't speak about.

Makes her want to call Dave just so she can chew off his ear for making this whole thing so incredibly complicated and fucked up. But he's so generally nice that it'd just be misplacing her anger and she knows herself well enough that that'd be a fantastically bad idea.

As she fiddles on her phone, as if on cue, it buzzes in her hand.

UNKNOWN (5:12 PM): Status Report?

Aimes eyes it and considered sending back a "new phone who dis". But as it's either her mysterious fuck buddy or an actual government official, she types out a reply.

AIMES (5:14 PM): Sorry, don't have the number, who is this?

Thankfully the hairdresser ignores her, which is exactly what she prefers.

UNKNOWN (5:20 PM) Katya Rinne. We spoke two days ago.

Of course it is, and of course she'd phrase it as status report. But before she could think of a witty enough response, her phone buzzes again.

UNKNOWN (5:22 PM): I need to ask you some awkward questions about sex. Do you like wine?

Aimes feels rather than hears her hairdresser chuckle behind her.

AIMES (5:23 PM): Generally wine is my friend.

After a second of hesitation, she adds Katya's name to her contacts. Might as well have someone to text.

KATYA GOVERNMENT (5:25 PM) Meet me at Flash in Sherman Oaks at 8 PM.

Aimes raises an eyebrow at the idea of discussing that sort of sex at a bar, but if the government figure can do it, then whatever.

* * *

The quirked eyebrowdefinitely tells Aimes that her new hair does not go unnoticed by Katya.

The door chimes when she enters, and it looks like every other wine and liquor mart in Los Angeles. Dust on the bottles, all the cheap options near the front, and a small collection of chips that are clearly from a nearby grocer.

The bar is tucked along the back, where Katya sits on one of the stools, still dressed in a sharp suit and combat boots. A lone bartender fiddles with some bottles.

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