CHAPTER 27
BLANCHETTE
Skoll Plaza looked different that morning.
The sky above the glass-and-steel canyon was brighter than usual, the smog having thinned to a pale veil instead of its normal dark haze. Sunlight struck the upper floors and fractured across the plaza in sharp reflections, turning windows into sheets of gold.
I felt it in my step.
For the first time in a long while, I wasn’t walking into work braced for impact. My shoulders weren’t hunched. My breath wasn’t shallow. I wasn’t sneezing. The familiar weight I’d learned to carry like an anchor had gotten lighter.
Everwick had done that.
Then came the thoughts of Juniper Hollow. Jonathan. The cabin. The smell of rain-soaked wood and firelight. The sound of my own laughter—real laughter, not the thin, polite kind I was forced to use here. I’d forgotten how hope felt.
I crossed the plaza doors and stepped into the lobby…and that was when I saw Bernie.
He was near the security desk, cardigan folded over one arm, his messenger bag slung crookedly over his shoulder. He looked smaller somehow. Bernie had always been compact, but now he seemed…folded inward. Like someone had reached inside him and turned the volume down ten notches.
“Bernie?” I called, picking up my steps. “Hey, you heading out to grab banana-walnut muffins? I owe you one.”
He startled, then smiled. “Oh. Hi, Blanche.” He hesitated. “No. Not today.”
I studied him. His hands were fidgeting with the strap of his bag, adjusting his watch, touching nothing and everything at once. He looked disoriented.
“Are you okay?” I asked, reaching out to touch his arm.
“I’m heading home,” he said softly.
“Home?” I echoed, confused. “Are you sick?”
He exhaled, long and tired. “That’s…one way to put it.”
Something in my chest tightened.
“Bernie. What’s going on?”
He looked at my hand on his arm for a moment before meeting my eyes. “They let me go.”
The words landed wrong. They simply didn’t make any sense.
“What? What do you mean they let you go?” I asked, incredulous. “That’s not—Bernie, you’ve been here longer than half this building!”
He nodded. “Early retirement package,” he added slowly. “Eldritch argued for over an hour. Got me a decent severance. But Erik wouldn’t budge.”
I felt heat flood my face. “That’s illegal. He can’t just— There are protections, Bernie. Age-discrimination laws, wrongful termination…”
“Blanche,” he interrupted gently.
I saw it then. The exhaustion. A deep exhaustion that lined the wrinkles of his face. I hadn’t noticed how deep they’d become these last few years, after his wife had passed away.
“I appreciate it,” he said. “But I’m tired. I’m too old to fight. I’ve been fighting alone…a long time now, Blanche. This city’s a hard place to be lonely in.”
My throat burned. My eyes stung. “What are you going to do?” I asked quietly.
He smiled again. Sad but sincere. “I don’t know. Graymore’s too expensive without this job. Hell, even with this job. And…Eunice has been gone a long time.” His voice softened. “The apartment’s quiet. Too quiet.”
I squeezed his hand. Harder. “I can’t believe this. You don’t deserve this,” I said.
“No,” he agreed. “But this place doesn’t care about that.”
A pause. Then he leaned closer, lowering his voice. “Promise me something,” he said.
“What?”
“Don’t let this place harden you,” he said. “You glow, Blanche. Don’t let them take that away from you.” He offered a small, familiar smile. “Remember, life is what you make it.”
I nodded, swallowing hard. Life is what you make it, I repeated silently. I hugged him then, tight and sudden. Like I was clinging on for dear life. He returned it with a gentle laugh and soft pat on my shoulder.
“We won’t be strangers,” I said, determined. Bernie had been my one true friend in the office for years. I couldn’t imagine not seeing him every day. He’d become such a constant in my life. “I won’t let that happen.”
“I’d like that,” he said. And he meant it.
I watched him walk out through the glass doors, swallowed by sunlight and the indifferent rush of the city.
And just like that, Skoll stopped being abstractly toxic…
And became cruel.
The elevator doors slid shut with a soft, pneumatic sigh, sealing me inside a steel box that felt suddenly like a coffin.
My reflection stared back at me from the mirrored wall, eyes bright with unshed tears, jaw clenched like I was holding myself together by force alone. Bernie’s words still rang in my ears: I’ve been fighting alone…a long time now, Blanche.
The elevator began its smooth ascent.
I swiped at my eyes with the heel of my palm. Of course I didn’t have a tissue. Allergies chose now to flare, my nose burning, vision blurring. I laughed weakly—an ugly, broken sound—and pressed my forehead against the cool metal for a moment.
Two floors up, the elevator chimed and stopped.
The doors opened to reveal the same minotaur I’d met before.
He filled the doorway, massive shoulders wrapped in a perfectly tailored blue suit this time, woolly brown-and-black fur framing a broad face softened by wire-rimmed glasses.
His glossy black hooves were polished to a mirror sheen, his thin tail tucked neatly through the tailored opening in the back of his slacks. Just like I remembered him.
Then, apologetic as before, he said, “Pardon me. I believe this isn’t my floor.”
“It’s…it’s fine,” I replied, scrubbing at my eyes and straightening myself.
“Oh,” he said gently, recognition sparking. “I remember you.” A small pause came as he studied me with concern. “Are you all right?”
I hesitated, then shrugged helplessly. “Layoffs,” I said. The word felt small and inadequate. “Not mine, but a longtime coworker.”
“I see,” he murmured, brows knit. “That explains the heaviness in the building today.” He reached into his suit jacket’s lapel pocket and produced a linen handkerchief and offered it kindly. “I’m sorry for your colleague.”
“Thank you,” I said, genuinely touched as I took it. “I’m Blanche.”
“Orin,” he replied with a small bow of his head. “Accounting. Or…what remains of it.”
The elevator chimed again.
“That’s me,” Orin said, stepping back. “Seventh floor. Well, it was nice meeting you again. And I hope your day improves.”
I smiled faintly. “Thank you, Orin. You too.”
The doors closed between us, and the elevator resumed its climb.
I pressed the handkerchief to my face, breathing in its clean, faint citrus scent. It made the tightness in my chest ease, just a little.
When the elevator finally opened on my floor, the contrast was brutal.
Rows of cubicles stretched out under harsh fluorescent light, every face bathed in the cold glow of monitors. Shoulders hunched. Spines curved. It felt less like an office and more like a pen…people boxed into glowing squares, each one quietly enduring the day. It hadn’t always been this way.
The air was tight. I felt suffocated by the atmosphere in a way I never noticed before. Something inside me snapped into focus.
I halted when I saw Bernie’s cubicle. Empty. Everything cleaned out—all his travel mugs, all the souvenirs he’d collected on his travels with his wife, all the things that had brought familiarity and warmth over the last eight years I’d been here.
Gone.
My gaze flicked to the doors shielding Erik’s office from view. Determination suddenly speared through me. Anger and resentment too. I deposited my purse at my cubicle but never stopped for single moment, my pace quickening.
I wasn’t brave, but this wasn’t right. I felt resolved. And for the first time in a long while, I was taking action.
My eyes flicked down the nearby hallway. For a second, I half expected Fang, Erik’s right-hand man, to be standing somewhere nearby, leaning in the shadows the way he sometimes did outside Erik’s office.
But the corridor was empty.
I was nearly at Erik’s door when his voice carried through the cracked glass. Sterile. Measured.
“No,” he was saying. “Phase Two needs to move faster. I don’t care what his old maps of that land say.”
A pause. My steps slowed.
“I want pressure applied without fingerprints,” Erik continued. “Quietly. If he resists, we make the resistance expensive. That’s what shell structures are for.”
Another pause. Then, faintly amused, “No. He doesn’t know who’s circling yet.”
My stomach dropped.
I took a careful step back just as the call ended.
The door swung open—sudden and sharp—close enough that I felt the displacement of air.
Erik stood in the door frame, gaze spearing straight through me.
The intense look in his eyes terrified me. Like a wolf having spotted movement of its prey and he was hungry. He’d known. I realized, too late, that he’d heard me, and worse, that he’d scented me before I ever reached the door.
His mouth curved slightly. “You move quietly,” he added. “That’s new.”
“Bernie,” I said before I could stop myself. My voice didn’t shake, and I was proud of that. “Why was he let go?”
Erik regarded me with mild curiosity, as if I’d commented on the weather. “He was no longer useful.”
“He was loyal,” I shot back. “He was good at his job. He’d been here longer than almost anyone. He was kind. He was reliable. He was an important employee to this company, and you just…you just let him go.”
“You have strong feelings for him,” Erik said lightly.
“Of course I do. I’ve known him since my first day here.”
A faint smile touched his mouth. “Longevity isn’t the same as relevance.”
I stared. “What?”
“The company culture is evolving. We need new blood,” Erik continued calmly. “Bernie no longer aligned with where we’re headed. His role had…diminished.”
“Why would you say that about him?” I shot back, furious.
“This isn’t personal, Blanchette,” Erik said smoothly, his shoulder lifting in a mild shrug. “It’s about efficiency. Being sentimental doesn’t mean long-term growth. I expected you to understand.”
My hands curled into fists. “He lost his wife to pancreatic cancer. He’s lonely and still grieving. He can’t stay in Graymore now.”
Erik’s expression didn’t change. “And that,” he said evenly, “is not my problem.”
His words hit like a slap.
“That’s vile, Erik,” I said. “You’re cruel, you know that?”
He didn’t deny it. His gaze shifted, slow and more intentional. “You’re different lately,” he murmured.
I stiffened, steadying myself, “What do you mean?”
“Your scent,” he said softly. “New perfume?”
“I don’t wear perfume.”
“Interesting,” Erik replied. He didn’t move from the threshold, just watched me with dark, narrowed eyes. “Careful, Blanche. You wouldn’t want people thinking you’re…distracted.”
He didn’t wait for my response. And without another look, he returned to his office, the door shutting with a soft, deliberate click.
I stood in the corridor, staring at the polished surface where he’d stood a second ago, my reflection faint and distorted. The resounding silence felt louder than any insult he’d thrown.
Something in my chest settled.
A decision.