Chapter Twenty-Five
Everest
Wilder is bouncing ahead of me cheerily as we walk down the hallway, and I thought he was just in a good mood, but he seems to be in a rush to get wherever he’s taking me.
“Why are you so excited?” I ask as I glare at him out of the corner of my eye.
We’ve always met in his office or the room we write in, but today he’s escorting me somewhere else.
He points to the turn ahead of us that leads to Maven’s office, and my stomach immediately lurches into my throat.
Was that today? How could I have forgotten?
I immediately break out into a sweat, panic flooding my veins.
That means my time here is almost over, and it can’t be.
It can’t.
We’re only a few steps away from his door now, and I feel like I’m suffocating.
My chest is squeezing tighter and tighter against my racing heart.
I slow my steps as I try to catch my breath, leaning against the wall for support.
Everything is fucking spinning, and the edges of my vision start going black.
Cool hands grasp my face, causing the tears lining my eyes to spill down my face.
“Breath, Everest.”
I jerk my eyes up and Thorne is there, as calm and collected as ever. I choke on a sob as I clasp his shirt in my fists. He pulls me against his chest, wrapping his arms around me.
“Breathe. Take a deep breath, Everest.”
My lip quivers as I struggle to suck in air, but he coaches me through that breath and a few dozen more. When I finally get a grasp on my lungs, he brushes the hair back from my face and looks down at me.
“This was not how I expected it to go the next time I saw you.” He says in a very serious tone.
A laugh rips from my throat, but it quickly turns into another sob. I use the sleeves of my hoodie to wipe at my face, trying to clear away all the evidence of my breakdown. This is pathetic. I know it is.
“I’m— I’m sorry.” I swallow the lump in my throat.
“Don’t apologize,” he demands as he glances toward to door of Maven’s office. “We probably shouldn’t keep Maven waiting too long, though.”
I nod in agreement as I wipe at my face again.
He pulls back and gestures for me to go ahead of him, so I push the door open and step inside warily.
I know that they can all see what a mess my face is, but no one comments on it.
No one even chances looking at me for too long, and that just makes me even more nervous.
“Have a seat. We have a lot to go over.” Maven demands.
I don’t say a word as I take a seat across from his desk, not that I could even if I wanted to.
Wilder is already sitting on the couch that’s off to the side, Thorne stepping over to join him.
For a lack of better things to focus on, I watch as he takes his seat.
He gives me an encouraging smile before nodding toward Maven.
I turn my attention back to him as he starts shuffling through the papers on the desk in front of him.
I don’t know what he’s looking for, but as he continues to sift through them, Ollivander steps inside and closes the door behind him.
It’s no surprise that he walks around the desk and waits at Maven’s side like the good little puppy dog he is.
Maven pulls a sheet out from the stack of papers and leans back in his chair as he reads over it.
“Explain your findings, Wilder.” He demands.
His findings? What the fuck is he even talking about? I look over at Wilder as he opens the notebook in front of him, flipping through a few pages before he starts to read aloud.
“Depressive episodes and apparently occasional panic attacks,“ he says as he glances up at me. “Manageable with the appropriate support. No psychotic breaks or impulsive behaviors. Wasn’t overly social, but participated with other inmates when the situation called for it. He is incredibly intelligent, hav–”
“His test results?”
“I was getting to that,” Wilder grumbles as he glares at Maven. Maven raises an eyebrow knowingly and gestures for him to get to the point.
“He’s very intelligent. He has a lot of knowledge across the board, but we didn’t have time to pinpoint anything he’s particularly gifted at.”
I glance back and forth between them as Wilder continues to go over the months worth of data they’ve been keeping on me. I sit quietly until Wilder is done, and Maven starts to pick up another piece of paper.
“So, you guys were studying us just as much as we were studying you?”
Maven looks up at me and furrows his brows in confusion. “Of course, we were. That wasn’t obvious from the beginning?”
I plop back against the chair, a little annoyed.
He could’ve just told us that. It’s not like we would’ve changed our minds because of it, but perhaps we would’ve acted differently, as well.
Not being fully aware gave me the freedom I needed to not stress about how I was acting, and knowing could have made things end differently.
I knew they were watching us, testing us, but I thought it was for our safety, not for their own gain.
“You’ll be going back into quarantine tomorrow morning. Thorne and Wilder will be at your disposal for the next couple of days as you readjust to normal life.”
“Woah, woah, woah! Wait!” I say as I lean forward in my chair. “What about Jett and Lance?”
Maven glares up at me from the paper he was reading over. “They’re going to be relieved of their duties, obviously.”
“I won’t see them anymore? At all?”
“No. This will be the final week of your stay, and you’ll be back on this side of the building with us.” Wilder answers for him.
He snaps his notebook closed and scoots toward the edge of the couch. “Jett and Everest have gotten very attached to one another.” He explains as he watches Maven.
“Ahh,“ Maven says with a smirk as he puts the paper down and crosses his hands atop it. “We were prepared to offer you a position here if you had any specialized knowledge that could contribute to—“
“I have knowledge! Specialized knowledge,“ I blurt out as I sit forward in my seat. “I do. I know homeopathic medicine, and I have extensive knowledge about plants.”
I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, honestly.
I do have specialized knowledge, but a position?
Like a job here? I don’t want to leave Jett.
Honest to God, just thinking about it makes me want to crawl in bed and never leave it again.
I would straight up street brawl, like throwing punches, hair pulling, scratching, whatever I could manage if someone tried to drag me away from him…
except for Cal and Axel. I can’t abandon them. I can’t.
Maven raises a brow in curiosity as he watches me. He glances over at Wilder who just shrugs. “You seem a lot more eager to stay than even I anticipated.”
I nervously rub my hands against my pants, staring down at my feet.
“I don’t— I’m not sure if I am, actually.
I have— There’s my sister and I have so much back home to take care of.
I don’t— I don’t know what to do. What I want to do.
“ I stammer out before I glance over to Thorne. Out of everyone here, he’s the person that understands me the most. He offers me a weak smile, but we both know that he can’t make this decision for me.
“We can send you home today and give you two weeks to consider the offer. However, if you publicly post an article about Blightridge, you will forfeit the option to come back.”
What? My eyes snap to him in confusion. “That was the whole reason I came here!” I blurt out in desperation. That damn article was the only thing I was clinging to.
“Indeed,” he says with a nod. “But if you’re going to be a permanent resident here, we prefer you not air out the staff’s dirty laundry. That could cause unnecessary tension.”
I can kind of understand where he’s coming from, so I relent, nodding in agreement. Two weeks. No article.
“We will have Thorne collect your belongings and get you ready for your flight home. After the allotted time, we’ll have someone retrieve you for our final meeting.”
“Wait! I can’t see him before I leave? Jett?” I ask as I frantically look between the four of them. “I need to tell him. I can’t just… just… disappear. That’s not fair.”
“Nothing about life is fair, Everest.” Maven replies firmly.
“When we meet again, we will go over the terms. If you choose to stay, we will be willing to meet some of your demands based on how valuable you are to our program. I suggest you spend some time thinking about services and knowledge that you’re willing to provide for us.
Ollivander will be running the numbers and calculating what we’re willing to spend on trading for you, so be considering what you would like in exchange, if you choose to stay. ”
“Trade? What do you mean trade?” I ask as I look between him and Ollivander.
“We run a high value program here. A lot of our residents specialize in certain fields of study, and some of the things they create, we sell to help fund Blightridge as a whole. Outsourced sales and trades, things of that nature. Mainly for food products, but for any other supplies we may need, as well. People don’t typically come here willingly, that’s a relatively new part of our program, but we make trades for them, all the same.
This one will just be with you instead of for you.
“ Ollivander explains as he looks over at Wilder before turning his attention back to me. My brain gets stuck on food.
Foods, foods, foods.
“Typically whoever sends someone here is the person we’re trading with.
They trade someone with valuable skills or knowledge for some other service or product from us.
We always trade evenly, never leaving room for argument, and any person that is traded to us must also agree to come willingly, sometimes we even offer to give them something in exchange for their willingness to come. ”
“Like with Jett and Lance,” Wilder adds.