Chapter 33

Inside the giant skull—the epitomal monument to instilling fear in the world beyond, aka Dennis—is a perfectly ordinary workplace. It could be any office. It could be my office, were it not currently a giant pile of rubble.

Now that I’ve entered the building via the janitorial entrance, it’s like I’ve entered a new world. I’m not sure what I expected, lasers – matching uniforms with skulls, armed guards patrolling about…cobwebs at the very least. Instead, canned corporate greets me everywhere I go. Generic artwork that is as unevocative as it is beige, line the walls. Complicated rubbish disposal bins with clear labeling that have blatantly been ignored are tucked into corners. People walk around in business-y outfits (normal business level, not leather pantsuits with embroidered flames). They carry around folders, make small talk, and give awkward nods to co-workers whose names they clearly don’t know.

In other words: I’m in my element.

I adopt my best expression that says: ‘I’m busy, but not rushed because that would mean I dropped a ball somewhere’ and begin to peruse. According to my blueprints and confirmed by Grant, the entire first floor is filled with the more generic occupations. Security offices, janitorial storage, meeting rooms, and transport break rooms are all on this floor. In other words, not what I’m looking for.

The second, third, and fourth floors are where most of the bustle is. Because of the weird shape of the cliffside (go figure it’s sub-optimal for office real estate), each floor has less area to work with. Everything that’s on the second, third, and fourth floors—the marketing, accounting, and architectural departments—could all be combined to fit onto the sprawling first floor.

The fifth floor is dedicated to staff amenities. It has the breakroom, a gym, and several sleeping dormitories for those who prefer to not to ferry onto the island every day.

After this, the blueprints show that each floor is scarcely a floor at all. The sixth floor is dedicated to research and development. It encompasses many different ventures of all forking branches of Hart Link Incorporated, from space, to telecommunications, to apps. Really, when you look at the list of subsidiaries and joint projects, there’s almost no part of the public’s life that Hart Link doesn’t have a hand in.

And Grant doesn’t think they’re evil.

Please.

The seventh and eighth floors are interesting. Not only are they located several stories above the previous floors, but they’re also technically on the same level. Way up in the eye sockets of the skull are the lawyer headquarters in the left eye and Zagreus Hart’s office in the right.

The man houses his office in the right eye of a giant skull that looms over the ocean like a warning against the audacity to hope, and Grant doesn’t think he’s evil? He insists that the builders just built into the rock wall as it was, and it just so happens to bear a passing resemblance to a face.

Then again, this is the man who willingly ate Brady the DM’s bone marrow ice cream because he thought there was a chance it’d be good. He really does just see the best in people.

I pause just as I press down the elevator call button. It illuminates yellow as my mind mulls over my last thought. I’ve been so worried about Grant finally seeing the worst in me, that I haven’t considered the fact that maybe he sees the best.

Despite what I’ve been told and texted, there is good in me. I’ve worked hard to become the person that I am. There’s a lot in me to be proud of. There’s a lot of me that’s worthy of love.

I’m not some consolation prize for someone who can overlook my faults.

The dinging of the elevator brings me back into the present. I’m so dazed that I stand stupidly in front of the very center of the opening door as the occupant tries to exit. She’s holding an empty cupcake plate and half a dozen party decorations as she tries to sidestep me while I clearly block her.

“Sorry,” she mumbles.

Finally, I take half a step to the side.

“Oh no, my bad,” I say because it was. Really, I’m not one for false apologies. I know, terrible Canadian, eh?

She offers me a half smile as an acceptance of my apology. My eyes catch on her face. She’s absolutely stunning, even strained with trying to amble around me while juggling all the decorations. But that’s not why I’m staring. If I’m not mistaken, she was the heroine on the last season of Date My Gardener. The one who got spectacularly rejected.

She flushes red and hangs her head so that her hair obscures her face as she turns away from me.

“Going up?” asks a man’s voice from behind me.

I jump at the sound. I had no idea someone was behind me.

It only takes a minute for me to gather my composure.

“Of course,” I say coolly and step into the elevator like I wasn’t staring at my supposed long-time coworker.

When I step into the elevator, the man follows uncomfortably close behind. Far too close for social norms. Dr. Debbie says that workplace interactions should all be held at arm’s length, with just enough space between to join for a firm handshake. This is not that.

His closeness pushes me to the back of the elevator, while still not giving me enough space to get a good look at him. All I know is that he is tall. He looms over my space, eclipsing my sense of freedom. Reaching behind, he pushes the button to close the elevator door. Then, he steps back without selecting his own destination.

“One would think that an employee would know by now that Candace doesn’t like it when people stare?”

As he continues to back out of the confines of my personal space, I see him for who he is: the tall, scarred man. Under his hat, a black fedora, he eyes me as he steps to the back of the elevator, daring me to make my move.

I nod, non-committal and uninterested. “One would think, wouldn’t they?” I say simply. The biggest mistake liars make is by expanding the lie. An open mouth puts more criminals away than any of the fancy, non-existent technology on crime TV shows ever could.

The tall man’s mouth twitches.

“Which floor?” He gestures to the elevator buttons.

The smart move would be to hit floor three or four and then get out of the building as soon as possible. Even if I play this with Oscar-worthy finesse, I’m still compromised. There’s no way he isn’t onto me.

That being said, safe is for people not stuck in a time loop.

I press the seventh-floor button. The panel glows an alarming red. Palming Grant’s keycard so that the picture isn’t visible, I push it up against the sensor box on the panel, all while maintaining eye contact with the freakiest pair of blue eyes I could ever imagine. The panel goes green and the elevator lurches upwards. Just like Grant said it would.

“Seventh floor?” he asks.

“Isn’t that what I pushed?” I counter.

I don’t move a muscle.

I don’t pull out my phone and scroll idly. I don’t fidget or whistle a jaunty tune. I sure as hell don’t speak.

And neither does he.

We wait in silence as the elevator hums with its ascent. Because of the awkward placement of the floors, the elevator ride takes much longer than a normal seven-floor ride.

With practiced patience, both of us wait it out with the stillness of ice in the heart of winter.

Finally, we reach the seventh floor, and the door opens. I release the breath that I’ve been semi-holding for the last minute.

“Excuse m—” I start.

The tall, scarred man just reaches forward and taps the close door button. “You think just anyone gets to enter my domain?” He shifts his body. In that shift is more threat than anything overt every could offer. He exudes power and strength. Like he said, I’m in his domain and he is filled with the power of being its king. “Would you like to tell me how a little fly that I’ve never seen has come buzzing up to a place it ought not to be?”

He takes a slight step forward, his tall frame casting reaching fingers of shadow over me, clutching me with its grip. In that moment, I know without a doubt that he is a man who is capable of absolutely anything.

Unluckily for him, I love a challenge.

“Are you forcibly detaining me here?” I ask, taking a half step towards him.

The tall man’s lips twitch and his eyes flash with an echo of what might have once been human emotion.

“Why would you think that?”

“Isn’t it reasonable that one could construe that pressing the ‘door close’ button and the ensuing question could be ascertained as a poorly veiled attempt to detain me here against my will for unconsented questioning?”

Again, the corner of his mouth twitches. Whatever emotion he’s feeling doesn’t reach his eyes. It could be the beginning of a smile. It could be the beginning of a murderous bellow of rage. It could be gas. I have no way of knowing.

“Is that how my actions might be construed?” He reaches towards the buttons, but this time presses the door open button.

When I walk out of the elevator and into the lobby that’s the central hub for all the legal offices, I’m immediately struck by the view. The far wall is made up entirely of windows that stretch impossibly skyward. While the eye socket looks big from the shore, it’s unimaginably immense from within. Winding staircases extend the offices upwards just as much as they stretch horizontally. Single offices lie suspended in bricks of glass at regular intervals along the staircases.

As amazing as those are, they hold none of my interest. Nothing of note in a law firm is walled in by glass. No, the good stuff is couched in concrete and swaddled in shadow.

Trying to look as practiced as possible, I casually steer myself towards the only wing that has a hallway that leads away from the windowed wall. The room that Grant confirms to be a records room of sorts. If there’s dirt, that’s where it’ll be.

“You can’t really expect me to afford you open access, can you?”

I turn towards him, adopting my best bored, but also surprised look. While I give my him my best raised eyebrow, I secretly contemplate my chances at a successful run towards the records room. There isn’t any security up here—the keycard negated the need for that—but I doubt I’d come across anything of use by the time they could get security up here.

“Would you join me in my office?” he asks in a way that is most certainly not a question, gesturing to a main office right up against the window. It even has a glass-floored balcony that overlooks the whole fa?ade.

I was really hoping that office would be his.

“Let’s call this a professional courtesy that we have this chat sans the presence of my security team for the moment, shall we?”

Since I’m nothing if not professional, I follow him into his office.

Which was exactly my plan all along.