“No personal pleasure here.” Jo reminded her; that was her pleasure and
not Susan’s. Her voice was hard edged, yet a shard of a soul remained
in her voice. She stared at Susan, who gave Jo an endearing look in
return.

“I know your rules Jo. I am not to have any of MINE
here; nor am I allowed to play out any of my personal games on the
premises. No drugs, or you’ll have me in federal prison in solitary
before I can say Mama. You made that clear. LNF is your playground, and
I supply you the playmates.” Susan said, voice laced with ice and Jo’s
eyes gleamed. Susan watched for the shift in color, but Jo turned away
before it could have happened.

Jo Wheaton intrigued her to no ends, but Susan knew when she should and
shouldn’t get involved; this was a shouldn’t sort of situation.

“Rules, do you honestly have any rules Susan?” Jo asked as she turned
to her, moving the sunglasses to cover her eyes, walking across the
translucent floor towards her. Even the way the woman moved, a gliding
floating flow of body that could make even Susan swoon.

Susan refused to look down; the floor of the office was 8 inches of
steel reinforced bullet-proof glass. The small steel beams
spider-webbed across the floor, yet still, the effect of ‘floating’
was virtually complete. She was sure that Jo knew that she didn’t like
the room, which was why she had her come up here as often as she did.

Susan watched as Jo moved, like a solid fluid that seemed to bend in
time with each heartbeat. Susan tore her eyes away from the woman’s
body, focusing on the purple light above the desk instead.

“Yes. I do.” Susan said quietly as if in thought, thinking it was just
the rules imposed by the outside world that stifled her thoughts and
life; if she could do an end around on the rules, she gladly did so.
Drugs, *****, blackmail even a bit of death would never stop her from
getting what, and who she wanted.

“Excellent. Have you found someone to run the Lost ‘N Found as of yet?”
Jo said, looking down onto the dance floor, empty now, as her heart
was. She ached for Amy; wishing her here wasn’t going to make it true.
Nothing on earth could change how things had become and who she herself
had become, a true hunter of the night. Lurking in the darkness of each
shadow, shying from the light, feeding and raping when she could, a
true to form shadow walker and that thought was enough to tell Jo that
Amy was her past. This, this place, this life of pain and suffering and
of blood was her new home now.