Chapter 9 #4
We hadn’t acted on anything yet, but it was real enough that pretending otherwise would be insulting to both of us.
I took exactly four minutes and thirty seconds because Benjamin terrified me even when he was being kind. I splashed cold water under my eyes, pressed a paper towel to my cheeks, and looked at myself in the mirror.
I looked flushed.
I looked rattled.
I looked, unfortunately, like a woman who had enjoyed being given a verbal spanking by the one man who shouldn’t have. Then the image of me bent over his desk about to get a real one flashed before my eyes and my face went pale white.
“Serious employee,” I whispered to my reflection.
My reflection looked skeptical.
When I returned to the conference room, the HR video was still paused on a slide titled Recognizing Workplace Boundaries.
I stared at it for a full second.
Then I laughed so abruptly that Mark-or-Matt looked over with concern.
“Sorry,” I said, sitting down. “Allergies.”
By three o’clock, I had passed the cybersecurity test with one hundred percent, which felt less like achievement and more like proof that I could identify a phishing email designed by someone’s uncle. Benjamin appeared two minutes after the score populated, as if summoned by compliance.
“Well?” he asked.
I turned my laptop toward him.
He inspected the score. “Acceptable.”
“Perfect, actually.”
“Perfect is a dangerous word. It encourages personality collapse.”
“Are you proud of me, Ben?”
He looked pained. “Do not make this personal.”
I grinned despite myself. Something had shifted between us during the day. We weren’t friends, exactly. Benjamin did not seem like a man who entered friendship without background checks and a signed indemnity, but the open hostility had begun to change into something more enjoyable.
A few hours later, Dana gave me a stack of old internal project summaries and asked me to rewrite one paragraph from each in ‘human language.’ I did. She read them in silence, red pen in hand. By the third paragraph, she made a small sound.
I braced myself.
“This is clear,” she said.
“Is that bad?”
“No. It’s suspicious.”
“Thank you?”
She marked one sentence. “You’re too soft here. Don’t apologize for the information. State it.”
I nodded and took the page back.
Benjamin, passing behind her, said, “Look at that. Becoming useful before sunset.”
Dana did not look up. “Don’t praise her. She’ll get dewy-eyed.”
“I will not,” I defended.
Dana looked at me, her expression flat.
I reconsidered. “Probably not.”
By the end of the day, my brain felt packed with passwords, acronyms, policies, faces, warnings, and the constant hum of the Hartwell crisis moving around me without ever touching me directly.
Callum did not return to his office while I could see him.
Once, I heard his voice from the far conference room, loud through half-open glass: “They can imply whatever they like. We answer with documentation.” My whole body tuned toward the sound before I could stop it.
Benjamin, standing beside my desk, said without looking up from his tablet, “Pavlovian.”
“I’m allowed to recognize voices.”
“Certainly. Some people also recognize the dinner bell.”
I glared at him.
He handed me another form. “Sign here.”
At 5:01, he finally released me.
“Tomorrow, nine,” he said. “Bring the laptop. Bring your badge. Bring less visible yearning.”
I nearly dropped my bag. “Excuse me?”
He looked bland. “For professional development. A general recommendation.”
“I do not have visible yearning.”
“You have visible something. I am being generous with terminology.”
“Goodbye, Ben.”
“Read pages twelve through nineteen of the operations guide. Do not skim it. I can tell when people skim.”
“I’m leaving now.”
“Wise.”
I made it to the elevator before turning back toward the operations floor. Through the glass and movement, I could see the far hallway leading toward Callum’s office. He was nowhere visible. I told myself that was good. Still, some small, stubborn part of me wanted him to appear.
He did not.
The elevator doors opened. My phone buzzed just as I stepped inside. For one reckless second, hope leapt, but it was Jules.
Jules: First day report. Did anyone die? Did Callum commit more open throat crimes? Did Benjamin challenge you to trial by combat?
I stared at the message, then laughed softly as the doors closed.
Me: No one died. Open throats happened. I am not ready to discuss that fact.
Jules: Oh, God.
Me: Also he called me young lady. Twice.
The typing bubbles appeared instantly.
Disappeared.
Appeared again.
Then:
Jules: I need to sit down and I am already sitting.
I leaned against the elevator wall, exhausted, aching, alive in every inconvenient place.
Me: Girl, same.
The elevator descended, carrying me away from the forty-seventh floor, from Benjamin’s insults and Dana’s red pen and Callum’s office with its glass walls, uneaten salad, and charged silence. Tomorrow, I would come back.
I closed my eyes and reminded myself that Callum was forbidden, but for the first time, it didn’t sound like a warning.
It sounded like a dare.