Elodie’s clear plastic cuff flashed green as she approached the spotless glass doors. They opened noiselessly, their shiny gold handles glinting in the dappled sunlight. How long had it been since anyone had actually touched them? The handles on all of the entrances in the remaining buildings in Zone One were now nothing more than metal jewelry for doors.
The scent of fresh pine, of the forest after a rainstorm, swirled through the air.
“Is this one of those experiments where someone stands in the middle of the walkway to see whether or not people are gullible enough to start a line behind them?”
Heat flooded Elodie’s cheeks and she flicked her gaze to the pavement behind her and the owner of the deep, silky voice and source of the piney scent. How had she missed those giant boots clomping up behind her? The boots moved, leaving a dusting of dirt across the red brick. Elodie grimaced. Who even knew where to find that much dirt?
“You are going in, right?” The owner of the boots spoke again.
Elodie jerked forward and absentmindedly shook her head at the dingy, mud-splattered yellow laces. “No. I mean yes.” She forced her attention to the ground beneath the nearly silent shuffling of her brilliantly white sneakers. Maybe she did get lost in her thoughts way too often. “Yes, I—” The glass door clanged surprisingly loud when Elodie smacked into it.
The heavy boots clomped up behind her, bringing with them more of the crisp evergreen scent. “Oh, shit. Are you okay?”
Elodie’s vision danced as she waited for the doors to reopen before attempting to walk through them again. “Yeah.” She rubbed the side of her head and stayed facing forward, refusing to look at whoever had just witnessed what had to be the most embarrassing moment of her life. The doors opened and Elodie concentrated on proceeding as calmly and incident-free as possible to the bay of elevators. “Eleven,” she squeaked after scanning her cuff beneath the elevator’s control panel.
The heavy, crunchy footsteps continued to shadow her. Elodie pressed her eyelids shut and held her cool palm against her flaming cheek as she waited to see which elevator would descend first.
Another beep of the control panel. “Twelve,” the boots’ owner said with a muffled groan.
Or maybe Elodie was the one groaning.
Her eyelids fluttered open and she cast a sideways glance at the dirty brown boots waiting by her side. There was no way she could board an elevator and ride all the way to the eleventh floor with that forest scent, with someone who had just watched her walk into a door. Not with the morning she’d been having. She smoothed her wet hair over the tender knot forming on the side of her head.
An elevator chimed its arrival, and Elodie darted away from the opening doors and the heavy boots.
Today seemed like a really good day to take the stairs.
IV
“And the key to our future. The key to our future. The key to our future.” Blair bit down on her nail, silently scolded herself, and then clasped her hands in front of her as she hurried down the MediCenter’s glass-lined corridor. “Damn. I could’ve done better. That’s the worst part about going live. There’s no opportunity to make adjustments or edits.”
“Nonsense. You did great.” Blair’s new assistant’s words were rushed and breathy as her short legs worked to keep up. “Really, Ms. Scott, you are an asset. A real asset. Everybody thinks so.” Her assistant’s constant need to please made Blair’s teeth hurt.
“Your name,” Blair snapped her fingers. “I’ve forgotten it already.”
“Wyndham, Ms. Scott. Maxine Wyndham.”
Sure, Blair might seem a bit tough, and may have gone through more assistants than years she’d been alive, but that was only because none of them were a right fit. She needed someone dedicated. As dedicated as she was. And that wasn’t easy to find.
Blair would have a cot brought to her office at Westfall’s downtown MediCenter, which served as the Key Corp headquarters of the New American West Coast, if it meant a greater career edge. She’d once considered curling up on her plush throw rug, but felt it would create the wrong optics. Each one of the assistants Career Placement had assigned her had pretended to feel the way she did, but it was obvious they didn’t possess the same strain of dedication Blair had coursing through her veins. She’d even weighed letting her brother give it a shot, but she knew how that would end.
The Leightons, Blair’s parents, had both worked hard for the long, prestigious titles they’d tacked in front of their surnames. After their deaths, Cath Scott had adopted Blair, and the Key had pressured her to take Cath’s last name. Unity, that’s what the corporation had been striving after. That’s how battles were won and power reigned, and Blair understood those facts completely. It was a fair trade-off. The silver lining to her unbelievably stormy life. A new last name that practically oozed power in exchange for her fate as an orphan. Even if she’d had a choice, she would have taken that name. Cath had not only completed a doctorate but had also risen to director of Career Placement at the MediCenter. That made Blair as close to an example of born and raised in as anyone was going to get.
But, for some reason, every assistant placed with Blair assumed that her desire to be on top meant that she needed some kind of yes person. That, however, was not how the saying went. Behind every strong woman was a sea of strong women, not behind every strong woman was a sea of yes-minded drones. Why didn’t anyone understand that?
Blair turned down the corridor that led to her office and stopped short of the door. “Ms. Wyndham.” She swiveled to face her pretty new assistant. “I appreciate all you’ve done . . .”
Black.
She categorized the lie immediately. Although, black was far from the worst kind. Blair was always lying to someone. Like luggage on a trip, lies followed her to each destination. She had to pack them up every night just to unload them in the morning. To keep track, she’d developed a sort of guide. It also served as a guilt meter—Blair felt it was the least she could do to make note of how guilty she should feel if she ever decided to turn that part of herself back on.
Red lies were lies that, if they were corporeal, would draw blood. And then there were black lies. Blair would never feel anything about black lies. They were empty holes of nothingness. Words slid so gracefully into conversation that their absence would have been felt more seriously than their addition.
Blair hooked a soft smile to the corners of her lips and continued. “But I really don’t think you’re right for this position.”
Maxine’s cheeks flushed and the tip of her thin nose turned pink. “I don’t understand. I thought everything was going well.”
“It is . . .” Black. “But our styles are too different.”
Maxine’s nose twitched, and she rubbed her red, puffy eyes.