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The port bar was loaded—too many heads could be counted in the tawny light of the lamps, an old colored antique style fading into the ring of bulb. The odor of sweet, stale beer was everywhere….underfoot, on the bar, in the bathrooms….No end to it. Off to the left of the bar and with a clear view of the room, he could see the door….and as clockwork, she came right in at seven exact….Not a minute before, not a minute after. She came in like she always did—drawing off conversation, turning glances filled with dirty thoughts…She didn't ask for it—she didn't care. Half her body was hidden in a wide sweater, but her jeans….Couldn't hide the legs if she tried. The streamline tuck of her laces into military black boots gave one pause—she was kind of that tough girl material. She was in her mid to late forties, but had a youth in the eyes that could run the teeth into a grit. She was a real apple—several of the boys smiling at her when she sidled into the bar could have busted through their back molars they were showing so much teeth. It typically ended the same—guy asks to buy her a beer, she smiles in that sweet "You're an asswipe" and "I could break your nose with my thumb" kind of look, turns the other cheek followed by a shoulder and gives them the cold goodbye.

In America—what had been restructured after a fifty-state long Reaper faceplanted in it, she was the envy of women, but there were none at this dump in what was formerly Cherry Lake, Colorado. Under a thin set of eyebrows, she had that hard thousand-meter stare. Gray irises that turned white when her eyelids opened wide…Or the background behind her shoulder was a leaking overcast sky….Something about the rain made her paler than the porcelain she was—but Braith Shepard was no fragile figurine.

One of the guys trying hard to earn his apples that night was leaning heavy on her, asking her name, playing the nice guy, getting too close for even his comfort—the other guy observing from the back of the room. She must have said a word then—the guy had a shock of hair that matched his pissed expression in tension….Next thing happens: he's called her one of those unfriendly women words—she says something else and his face turns mauve. She doesn't notice when his buddies grab their dickhead friend and urge him out of the bar…left to order, she asks the barkeep for a Stolhic's Moonshiner and flashes him her card.

Call her G.I. Jane? She was really the Cobra dominatrix type, in his opinion. She would now progress herself into becoming wasted by that moonshine…and he would be there to watch her stumble home.