The meeting ended with the door slamming just a little too hard behind her, she hated that.
Arianna kept her face neutral as she exited the glass conference room, but inside, she was reeling. The reprimand had been sharp, nothing physical, of course, but the tone had sliced right through her pride.
This was worse than the last time.
"You've been slipping, Arianna. The agency doesn't survive on past glories, you have got two months to straighten this out or someone else takes your chair."
Her stomach was still in knots.
She walked toward the elevator with her badge clipped to her blazer and her fists tight by her sides.
Isaac, a colleague from Internal Ops, was at the vending machine. Normally she would walk past, but something made her stop.
"Hey," she said.
He turned. "Ari, you look… emotionally assaulted."
"Thanks."
He smirked, took a bite of his granola bar.
She leaned against the wall beside him. "Can I ask something off the record?"
He shrugged. "Shoot."
