Chapter 11

For someone who continually suspects the worst in people, I was not prepared for the worst in Grant. Not really.

Humiliation burns on my face. I believed the whole superhero act. I really believed it. Maybe it was the video of him saving that whale. Maybe it’s just hard to believe that someone in skin-tight spandex has anything to hide. Or maybe the adrenaline of the night dulled my senses.

Why else would I dare to believe that someone could fall for me? I’ve learned that lesson before. I’m not the sort of person people like to be around.

Shame on him for manipulating my feelings for whatever he has planned.

And shame on me for believing him.

People aren’t good. Those who seem like they are, are actually the worst. People like Grant and Zagreus Hart are too good to be true. No one flies around helping old ladies across the street. No one goes above environmental protocols at a financial loss for their business.

They are definitely bad.

And probably working together.

God, they probably planned the whole building collapse together. A shiver goes through my body. They might have even planned for me being there. Anyone with any real surveillance would know that I have a history of going into work in the middle of the night. Anyone with any bit of intel on me would know that I would want to take the files home with me.

If they had any inkling that they were being investigated by us, then they could have orchestrated this entire thing—complete with seducing the idiot with all the files.

The angry part of me thinks that this is the perfect plan. The more logical part of me recognizes that it’s a little bit extreme and full of holes. Full of holes, but technically plausible. Especially if—

My thoughts are interrupted by this weird sensation that overwhelms my body. It’s that lurching feel on the first dip of a roller coaster. The disrupted equilibrium when you go to walk up another stair that’s not there. The upward tug of your heart when your chair gets pulled out from under you as you go to sit.

It’s like falling directly downwards.

Only multiplied by a thousand.

Then, for a moment, everything goes black as the feeling of gravity and expectations upturn and dissolve.

When the blackness clears and my vision returns, I’m no longer in my home, in my pajamas. I’m back at the office.

My office.

My uncollapsed office.