Agent X

xx| 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝙵𝚒𝚏𝚝𝚎𝚎𝚗 |xx

I glanced at my watch. It was nearly eight o'clock, time for the party to begin. I smoothed my black evening gown nervously. I felt rather awkward in the fine material. It just wasn't really like me to wear satin and pearls. In fact, this was the first time in my entire life that I was wearing a dress.

As uncomfortable as it was, I knew that I had to look nice. According to everyone else, I was enjoying an easy job of guarding people. So I forced myself to be natural in the strange fabric.

It's just another part of the mission. Nothing special or different about it.

A new message popped up on my screen from Ty, asking if we were ready. I walked over to the bathroom where Dari was getting ready, my three-inch heels clicking on the floor.

"Are you ready, Dari?" I asked, rapping on the door.

"Almost!"

"It's time to go!"

"I know, I'll be out in a jiff."

I rolled my eyes. Dari never spent very much time getting ready. Unfortunately, today she waited until the last moment before she started getting ready for the party. She'd taken a five minute shower, dried her hair in under three, and was finishing by throwing on her dress and splashing on some make-up, making it a fifteen minute look.

I got another message from Ty. Apparently, they were already meeting people downstairs. My foot tapped impatiently on the floor.

"Okay, I'm done." Dari rushed from the bathroom. I did a double take when I saw her. If we hadn't been so pressed for time, I might have bursted into laughter.

The straps of her moss-green dress were twisted, her eyeshadow was darker on one side than the other, and the top of her head was littered with frizzies. She was a mess.

"Uh, you good?" I asked.

"Yeah? Why wouldn't I be?"

"You just seem a bit... disheveled."

Dari sighed. "Yeah, perhaps I left it a little late."

"A little late?"

"Okay fine, very late. Now come on, let's go."

She shoved her feet into a pair of boots and headed for the door, not bothering to zip them up.

"Dari, wait. You can't go down like that." I grabbed her arm before she had a chance to open the door.

"Bruh I swear Imma flip if you start pampering me with tons of make-up."

"Don't worry, I'm not going to do that." I dragged her back to the bathroom and plopped her down on the bathroom chair. I plugged in my flat iron and set to work on her make-up. I grabbed a cotton swab and removed the excess shadow and added a little more to each so they looked even. Once the flat iron was heated, I straightened her red hair so it didn't look like straw about to catch on fire. I finished by straightening the spaghetti straps on her dress.

"There, all better. Now put your shoes on properly and let's go."

She complied immediately and we headed to the dining room. When we reached the hotel lobby, I checked the time—against my better judgement.

It was half past eight o'clock. I knew that checking would only frustrate me—Agent X was never late to an engagement—but it was important that Dari looked presentable in front of so many elite people. I supposed I should have hounded her more about getting ready. She never had this problem when she had enough time to properly groom herself.

It dawned on me, as a few of the real Xara's memories flashed through my head, that Dari's habit of getting ready at the last minute had only recently started. And by recently, I mean since I replaced the real Xara. I filed this away to figure out later.