Chapter 7
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I am useless without my morning affirmations.
Crisis
I suck.
I am the worst person in the history of the world. I basically broke a living human’s physical body because it gave me a rush to think of the man I hate sleeping on the floor while I was cozy in a bed feet from him. I slept so well while he suffered , and I have learned nothing from the guilt of this cruelty.
For, quite adamantly, I remain cruel.
I fall into the ranks of dictators, serial killers, people who sneeze near the buffet line.
Normally, I’ve made my peace with my less-than-tolerable character traits by this time—nine-thirty—of day. Normally , I have the precious eyes of Potato to gaze lovingly into a moment prior to my morning affirmations, which succeed in desensitizing me to my demeaning inner narrative.
Yes, I’m the worst, most useless person alive. What of it? Ask me if I care. I’ve already been over this.
Except today I have not already been over this , because the woman’s bathroom was filled to bursting with writers and authors chatting in excited tones about their books and how much they were going to get done in these next two weeks. Unable to relate—since they’re probably all amazing at their craft, and I was trying to concentrate as I mentally monologued brown hair, brown eyes, the pale flesh of a Victorian child with dysentery in the mirror—I could add nothing but oh, I’m just a personal assistant to the conversation when they asked me what I was working on.
The personal assistant thing was a lie, of course.
I’m working on what I’m always working on.
Not. Losing. My. Mind.
“It’s adorable!” I lift the square, ultra plush, sloth face…dog bed.
Viktor’s weary eyes take in the tag on the pillow, squinting without his glasses on. “Is that…for a dog?” Brow furrowed, he lifts his attention to the store around us, taking in the shelves filled with unrelated menageries. “What is this place…? I know I have to permit this business to be here…but…what?”
An excellent question. This place is the closest everything store to the ranch, dropped unceremoniously in the middle of a nowhere road leading back to the heart of town. It supplies the spattering of neighborhoods that scatter the countryside of Sunset with their random needs.
Like big, fluffy, pillow-shaped, sloth-decorated dog beds.
“It’s the most supportive pillow we’ve found in this place.” I hug it, to show that it’s a friend, and not let on how much I like the idea of Viktor Bachelor sleeping on a dog bed . “Everything else has been wimpy. Good for our purity fort. Not good for your neck.”
Viktor rubs his neck, looking down at me like a man who already regrets stealing me from the loving flippers of my fish for these two weeks. When I don’t show a single sign of budging, he caves. “Can’t we just pick up some pillows from home? It’s not that far a drive. And you spent hours researching the pillow brand I have right now for the sake of my neck.”
“We have twenty minutes to get back to the ranch for a morning motivational speech before lunch, then the rest of the day is packed with writing. Even one night without good support won’t help your already broken back.”
Viktor’s eyes drift, and I read how little he needs motivation to write in them before he opens his mouth. He, oddly, does not speak the obvious—skip the motivational speech , get the pillows from home—as he reaches for the dog bed. “Fair enough. Grab the fort. We need to get going.”
Grinning like an imp when he turns his back, I fill my arms with purity wall pillows and trot after him.
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“Today as we’re all spending our dedicated work time writing alone, just know that you are not alone. Not while you’re here. Together—even if we are separated in our own rooms—we’re going to achieve our goals.” The woman at the head of the largest room in the ranch house, where we had our orientation and take our meals, smiles, clenching her fist like a true achiever of dreams .
The room explodes with applause—I among them—because this is some of the best stand up I have ever seen. I can’t believe I was worried these people would be authors with their own assistants and the experience to out my less-than-professional plots. I’ve been choking back the violent urge to guffaw throughout this entire motivational speech .
Believe in yourself!
You’ve got this !
Go write that book !
It’s toddler advice. And a seven-figure author is sitting beside me, stone faced, while some of the saps in here who clearly have never had support for their “career” before sniffle and cry. To my left, a few tables up, some women are embracing. To my right, a few tables back, determination crosses a man’s face. He looks young. Preppy. I bet he saved all his piggy bank money for this event and he expects it to be where he gets his big break in the author world.
Except, this isn’t really author world, now is it? I don’t recognize anyone, and I’m about as deep as one can get into author stuff.
These. Are writers.
Writers who keep recognizing Viktor, gasping, and being too shy to approach him.
I do not blame them.
Viktor is big . Formidable big. I bite big. Add the sore neck I gave him, which is still bothering him, and he looks like he’s going to murder anyone who gets within a foot of him.
I mean. He might , but only if they—raw, itty bitty writers that they are—ask him to critique their first ever complete book.
I hope these losers aren’t so starry-eyed that they won’t do at least a tiny bit of decimating when it’s time for the first workshop in a few days. Seeing Viktor’s current work in progress torn apart is the only real reason I’m here. Like always, very little outside a deep-seated desire for retribution fuels me. After all, being here day-in, day-out goes against my work agreement. I had every right to turn down participation had I persisted.
Standing, Viktor frees a breath and carefully looks at me without turning his head. “Time for work,” he says, then he charts a course away from all the bubbling guests talking about what they’re going to do…instead of getting to it.
The atmosphere alone propels me toward wanting to use the many hours of dedicated writing time over the next thirteen days to throw down at least a short story, so I can be an even worse, smug, horrible person by the end of the retreat. When these people who needed a whole entire event to get their butts in gear mention how—shockingly—they did not attain their goals, I’ll be sat pretty, knowing I did what they couldn’t.
Without a single scrap of forethought.
I should probably see a therapist about my superiority cravings. This bone-deep desire to “one-up” complete strangers without ever letting them know I did can’t be healthy…
Once in our room, Viktor sets up his laptop at one of the two small desks framing the entryway across from the bed. He sits in the cushioned chair, places his printed-off outline beside the keyboard, and scowls at the screen.
“Can I get you anything, Mr. Bachelor?” I ask, amicably.
“My name,” he states. “My first name.”
Why in the world he’s suddenly pressing for me to call him Viktor I do not know, but I do like the part where it bothers him that I’m refusing, and I appreciate the part where I have absolutely every reasonable right to.
He’s my boss . Not my friend . I’m not gonna call him Viktor any more than I’m gonna call Crimson Miss Nightingale .
Besides, saying Viktor aloud means I’d have to shorten his name to Vik in my brain if I want to continue being secretly disrespectful, and then I’d just be thinking of Vaporub all the time. None of the Bachelor brothers stomach shortening their names. Zakery is Zakery. Kyran is Kyran. Lukas is Lukas. And I don’t even know how to butcher Kaleb in a feasible way, so he’s obviously Kaleb . For the record, people do not call him Kale . Although, plant addict that he is, he’d probably love that.
Humming, I get my own laptop started up at the other desk, and it’s almost like working in his room. Except, with enough dedication, I could reach out and touch him across the vast two-feet distance betwixt us.
Silence, broken by the occasional chatter in the hall, sweeps into the cramped space as I check on emails, project inquiries, rent payments, and tenant complaints. While I’m in the middle of forwarding an issue to the appropriate department within Viktor’s team, my chair breaks.
The crack of wood sounds in my ears a moment before my rump hits the ground, tumbling me from the seat to the hardwood with a muted oof .
Viktor—forgetting his neck’s broken state—whips his head toward me, then keels in on himself, grunting, “Are you…okay?”
Better than you are, mate.
I bet these things happen to me because I’m a bad person. It’s the only explanation, actually. Like a bad person, I pick myself up on my hands, puff strands of my hair out of my face, and say, “Of course. I’m young and spry, remember? Bones like rubber.”
My rubber butt hurts.
But I will get over it.
Finding Viktor with his hand clamped to his neck makes me wince. “Your not young and spry neck’s still bothering you a lot, huh?”
“I’m fine,” he grumbles, clearly not very fine.
Getting off the floor, I nudge the splinters of the broken chair leg under the desk where I’m less likely to trip on them, then I position myself behind Viktor, settling my hands on his shoulders. Taut muscles meet my fingers as he stills. “You’ve tightened up again,” I say, pressing into the tendons. “Stop tensing.”
He forces his shoulders to drop.
“Keep working.”
He lifts his hands to his keyboard.
His immediate, unquestioning obedience gives me a high.
I hate to say it, but the way he breathes through the pain of my working on him also gives me a high. I get a high…off hurting people.
Simply…love that about me…
Throat tight, I dig into the sore muscles, coaxing them loose, as though fixing the problem I caused is some kind of penitence.
As far as Viktor Bachelor is concerned, I aspire to be a convenient inconvenience. A mild disturbance in the man’s life. The niggling sensation of self-doubt under his skin.
Contrary to Crimson’s belief, I’m not at risk of murdering him. My hatred isn’t quiet enough for one big act of vindication to quell it. I don’t want to rid the world of those who have wronged me.
No.
I want to watch them suffer. I want justice for the suffering they’ve caused me.
But this was too far.
Physically hurting Viktor in a lasting way like this is not very vigilante of me. Although I am the scum and scourge of the earth, I like to pretend I have a line. It’s just not a very clear line…because I’m certain if in the future Ender drops a dead mouse on Viktor’s pillow and gives him the bubonic plague, I’ll be mentally fine , unencumbered by moral contingencies .
It wouldn’t matter if I trained the cat to leave him the dead presents. I can’t be held responsible for the wiles and whims of a feline. That’s ridiculous. Cats do what they want. Fully aware of the repercussions.
I mean, come on, my next training attempt was going to be a Canva Presentation, explaining every pro and con of putting dead mice on or near Viktor’s face while he sleeps. The presentation would include my intentions to provide Fancy Feast rewards for the service, but that would be the extent of my bribery. After delineating the plan via pie charts and graphs, if Ender accepts, I will fully be able to pawn off any subsequent guilt.
Ender made his own educated decisions. Duh.
I am, quite completely, a lunatic.
Viktor halts typing as a breath eases from his lips on the coattails of a swear. “Thank you, Crisis.” He stops my hand, fingers warm against mine. “That…that’s enough. I appreciate you.”
He appreciates me…even though this is entirely, and intentionally, my fault.
Stupid guilt.
Stupid conscience.
The rotten voice in the back of my head saying how Viktor hasn’t been anything but a kind boss to me rears. I hate that voice. It mutters stuff like what if he really was just having a bad day when he critiqued your work? and other nonsense along the lines of he literally just told you the truth concisely in an email, you sucky bag of meat soup. You’re punishing him for being honest.
Not a fan of that voice at all. Reasonable as I may be, I’m still human, so naturally I hate when my conscience goes against what I want.
“Is there anything else I can do to help you feel better…Viktor?” I ask, softly, tamping down the full-body revolt th at occurs in response to feeling his first name on my lips, upon request no less. Disgusting. Truly, utterly, horribly—
Carefully turning, Viktor looks up at me, eyes as gentle as the smile on his face. “No, Crisis. It’ll pass. I’ll do the stretches you sent me while you tell an attendant about the faulty chair.”
The…what?
Blinking out of a daze, which I’m certain isn’t due to witnessing his rare smile, I find my broken chair half stuffed under my desk. Chair. Yep. There it is.
A faulty chair.
I should definitely take care of that.
Clearing my throat, I say, “Excellent plan. I’ll…be back,” and slip from the room.