Lady Death

1. The Customer Is Never Right

Finley in attachment ^

1. The Customer Is Never Right

"So have you seen the news lately?"

I gripped the shears in my hand a little bit tighter at the sudden question for I knew exactly what the young red head in my chair was talking about. It's all that anyone could talk about.

"I heard about the assassination attempt, if that's what you're referring to." What else could she be wanting to bring up? I wanted more than anything for her to talk about heading back to college or how cute her dog was or why she decided to dye her hair a dark ash brown, all while I pretended to care. I didn't want to talk about this.

"Yeah, it's just so crazy that someone could try to kill the president like that!" I could literally feel her chirpy voice starting to get underneath my skin and while I knew she didn't mean to annoy me, I couldn't help but want to cut off an extra three inches of her hair out of spite.

"Uh huh," I mumbled while just trying to make the wet ends of her hair as neat as possible as quickly as possible.

"Luckily there was that team of people who were able to stop it before that could happen," she trilled out and I had to grit my teeth in frustration. Stop talking. "I mean, that one guy pulled off what was apparently the shot of the century as a..."

"Sniper," I finished for her, taking a step back from the chair and analyzing the cut length. It was perfect. "And it wasn't a guy."

Her high pitched laughter rang throughout the salon and the receptionist turned around to look at us confusedly. I just gave her a half-hearted shrug before turning back to the customer who was managing to get on every single one of my nerves.

When she had finished her giggling, she just shook her head vaguely. "You say that as if you actually know them or something." I didn't answer, instead choosing to let my silence speak for me as I clipped away another section of hair to trim away. "Wait, did you know them?"

At that question, she pulled away from me cutting her hair to stare me in the face, making the once straight line that her mane had been into a jagged one. I bit my lip and shut my eyes in frustration. She was going to be that client.

When I did open my eyes, it wasn't to look back into her angular face that had contorted in confusion, but I instead gazed at the news report displaying on the TV in the corner. The reporter was still talking about the accident that had happened only days prior, but I didn't need him to tell me all the details regarding what happened to the president. I had been there.

My eyes trained on the picture of the heroes that had been splattered across every news network around the globe, the random gaggle of misfits who had saved the most important man in America. I looked specifically into the dark eyes of the man in front, the leader of them and I felt a small pain in my gut at the thought of him and his haunting look.

"Yeah, I knew them."

****

4 months earlier

If anyone ever asked me what the trigger of my adventure was, I would definitely have to say it was Megan calling in sick. While I loved the girl to death, her work ethic was not something to admire. This was about the seventh time within two months that she'd asked me to cover her shift, but if I ever asked her to manage mine, I would only be met with excuses.

I couldn't complain though. She was the one who'd given me the job in the first place. It was all thanks to her that I was standing exhaustedly behind the desk of Nat Studios, staring down the clock that would only let me leave if no one walked in within the next two minutes.