Chapter 1 Artemis #2
He was a little quirky, I liked him. We headed to the lowest floor, his admission. There was no punch panel of numbers, it was a wave of his card and down we went. My stomach fluttered a little with the speed and my ears popped.
“Fudge,” River said as the elevator dinged. He rushed to put his glasses on. “Before we go inside. You need to sign this NDA.”
“Ok, sure,” I said, turning to see the elevator doors open, and the sound of a waterfall. “What do you need?”
“Palm here,” he said, presenting his tablet to me. “And your signature.”
With a pen, I signed the tablet, I couldn’t see what or where I was signing, but it was done. And on a heel, I turned to see bright lights, a water feature with men in all black sitting around it, sipping large colorful drinks.
“This is the atrium,” River said softly, encouraging me to leave the elevator.
I didn’t know where to look—so I looked everywhere, trying to find where the source of the light was coming from, it was above, I knew that much.
There were so many floors all of them—up and up, my eyes couldn’t focus on the top from the searing light bearing down upon me.
I grabbed the nice sunglasses and slipped them over my face.
The atrium, River called it, was like a hotel lobby, all marble floor, the fanciest hotel lobbies I’d only been to when I travelled with so-called friends from college.
I looked around, a dose of anxiety spiking as I shouldn’t be searching for Donovan, but he was probably behind this—I just knew it.
We had unfinished business, and since he’d left me in the middle of the night, I wanted to repay him the favor with a knife in the back and maybe my fingernails in it too, how hard would it be to carve Artemis into his skin anyway—the idea pulled a smirk across my lips.
“Hello,” a voice called out to me, and River gestured to a set of marble stairs descending into the atrium.
A woman with tanned skin, and dark hair all shiny with a wave I wanted to touch.
It just looked so silky. She was dressed in a black suit and a pair of Louboutin’s, the red heel giving it away.
“Artemis, I’m Mercy,” she said, closing her mouth and giggling.
“Hi, hi, yes,” I said, offering a bow of sorts, which only elicited another giggle. “Thank you for inviting me.”
“You don’t know me,” she said. “But I’ve been watching you. I would’ve invited you in sooner, but—” she licked her lips in pause. “Let’s go to my office.”
“So, what do you do here?” I asked.
Mercy gestured for River to approach with a single finger, and I was stood to stare at them, and the men, bandaged up, in wheelchairs, walkers, and some with workers dressed like River posted up at their sides.
“Let’s speak in my office, Artemis,” she said, grabbing my attention again. “I’m sure you’ve got plenty of questions, and I have an allotted amount of time to answer them.”
River turned to smile at me before walking off.
Mercy led me up the stairs. “The Sanctum is many things,” she started.
“An agency, an organization, a safehouse, it’s among many things, a place people come and go from.
For you, I want it to be a place where you can—” We came to a pause at a door with a red no entry sign.
“Develop those instincts I’ve seen in you.
” She opened the door into an office space with a bright window pane as if looking out on a field of daises. It illuminated the large office space.
“Or a place you blackmail me for everything I did into working for you,” I said, as the imagine cast on the window pane flickered to a waterfall with people playing. Mercy stood behind me, closing the door. “Right?” I took the shades off, as my eyes adjusted to how bright it was in here.
“Why would I turn this relationship hostile?” she asked. “Come, take a seat.”
“It’s just something you might do,” I said, sitting in the comfy leather chair opposite her desk. “I’ve been forced to question everything, so you can’t blame me.”
She smiled and stared at me. “How do you feel after getting your revenge?”
“How do I—”
“Feel,” she said. “Come on, you’ve got to feel some type of way, Artemis.”
“Relieved.” My eyes wincing slightly. “Why is there so much light?”
“Combating seasonal affective disorders,” she said. “Blasting the human eye with light therapy. We only do it during daylight hours. During the evening, we’re in a so-called dark mode, and try give guests the outside world experience.”
I nodded slowly. “Ok, and why am I here?”
“Jump right to it,” she said. “You have promise. Now, there’s a couple options ahead of you, Artemis. You can go finish off your final year at Whitespire, I’ve already got the funds to finance it for you, I know that was one of the reasons you started—slinging drugs in the first place.”
My grip on the arms of the chair tightened at the mention of Whitespire. “So, this is about that place?”
“Or,” she said, louder, as if she was repeating herself. “You can stay here, train with some of the best, and I’d take the same cut I do from all the people who use my services.”
“Twenty percent?”
“The lights have to stay on,” she said. “So, the choice is yours.”
The option to go back and get my degree—completely funded was compelling, I’d had dreams and plans, the idea of working up a corporate ladder, using connections from the college, and eventually becoming some VP—of whatever from my nepo friends.
I didn’t have that anymore, nobody from there would talk to me now, not after accidentally killing one of them with the drugs they’d bought.
Mercy placed two binders of paper in front of me, they were my choices. It felt like I was signing my life away regardless.
“And if I choose neither?”
Her brows attempted to rise up her frozen forehead. She laughed. “You go back out there, you can keep the apartment for as long as you need, and I guess start your life from there.”
“And if I stay?”
“You live here—a few months of training, but you’ve got to be committed to it,” she said. “Most of the men and women here doing ops are coming from military backgrounds. But you’re scrappy, I can see there’s something there.”
Chewing on my lip a little, I knew the choice was obvious. “Thank you.”
“Remember,” she said. “I know everything about you, I can help you here, we’re a family here, and only those I approve are ever admitted to see the inside of Sanctum.”
Now, I had to ask. “What about someone I hate?”
“You’re talking about Donovan?” she asked with the biggest smile. “You don’t hate him,” she said. “But if you’re asking whether you’ll see him, I’ll make sure to keep you apart.”
Scanning the two binders in front of me, I knew either choice would leave me dealing with things I’d been really good at patching away in the dry wall of my mind. “Can I think about it?” I asked.
“I’ll give you one minute,” she said. “And if you don’t decide, I’ll have someone escort you out.”
The choice should’ve been easy, and yet, I was contemplating being some big business executive who could crush my enemies with the backing of hostile takeover and—fun stuff.
“Well?”