Agent X

xx| 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚃𝚠𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚢-𝙵𝚒𝚟𝚎 |xx

I glanced down at my wrist. It was almost seven, time for us to leave for the delegate's dinner party hosted by the Belgian Embassy.

"Dari, are you ready?" I called.

I pressed a subdued shade of red on my lips. It was never my preference to wear bright colors, but the Director told us we had to look our best any time we attended dinner parties. Apparently that meant heels, pink eyeshadows, mascara, blush, and lipstick.

I leaned back to look at myself in the mirror. Staring at myself as a thirty-five-year-old was once a strange occurrence.

Not any more.

I'd grown used to—perhaps even fond of—seeing the older me in the mirror. The once suffocating make-up had become part of my skin. The wrinkles and fledgling crow's feet at the corners of my eyes were a normal sight.

"I can't believe that it's our final evening here," I murmured to myself. Out of all my years, this was the craziest time of my life. I had learned more about the world in the past week than I had in the seventeen years that I had been fed data. I felt like I had grown into the thirty-five-year-old face staring at me in the mirror. When I turned eighteen, I could call myself a proper adult.

I knew that my present circumstances were ephemeral. Soon, we would have the real Agent X, and I would be sent back to my room. But for some reason, I didn't mind it.

"What did you say?" Dari yelled, jostling me from my thoughts.

I peered into the other room to find Dari in sweatpants and a t-shirt. She lifted her headphones off her head.

"Oh, I was just saying that the week has gone by very fast."

"Yeah." Dari set down her computer and stretched. She glanced down, and her eyes went wider than dollar coins. "Oh, wow, it's late. I better get ready."

She must have seen the clock in the corner of her computer.

She ducked into the second bathroom. I shook my head and carefully stepped into my silver heels and clipped on a pair of crystal earrings. The one part of this job that I couldn't get used to were the painful clip ons I had to wear, since Xara refused to get her ears pierced. I would never say this to her face, but I always wondered if it was because she was afraid of the needle piercing the most tender part of her ear.

I stepped out of the bathroom. The satiny fabric of my black jumpsuit shifted around my ankles. Dari rushed from the bathroom in a simple, maroon gown.

"That was fast," I said.

"Um, yeah. Why are you surprised?"

I shrugged. "Just commenting on it. We'd better go." I grabbed my black clutch from my bed.

"I'm ready," Dari said.

"Great, come on."

I walked across the hall and knocked on the guy's door. A hodge-podge of footsteps raced to the door. I stepped back to allow the three, suited agents to shuffle past us.

"Are you all ready?" I asked.

"Yes," they chorused.

"Did you forget anything?"

"No," Jax and Finn said.

I wrinkled my brow. "Ty? Are you forgetting something?"

Ty snapped his fingers. "Just give me one minute." He dashed back inside the hotel room.

I rolled my eyes. Good grief. What is it now?

Ty returned a moment later. He unfolded his palm to show two, gold-monogrammed cufflinks.