Page 8 of Devil Mine

“I recently learned my father is going to marry me off. I’m trying to process it.”

He twists in his chair, one eyebrow raised in surprise.

“To whom?”

I shrug, playing with a loose piece of fabric sticking out from the couch cushion.

“To the highest bidder.”

He doesn’t answer, his face impassive. After a few moments, he turns around and gets back to work, typing away quietly on his computer. Wiz isn’t a talker, and certainly not someone who’s good at reassuring people, but that’s not why I come here.

I appreciate his silence, his quiet support. I need the safe space far away from the relentless and cutthroat pace upstairs.

“You want me to put a worm on his computer that’ll crash his entire system?” He says it nonchalantly, continuing to type away.

I laugh softly, shaking my head.

“That’s a very kind offer, but it’s okay, I know you’re busy.”

It’s his turn to shrug. Outside of his eyebrow raises, that’s about the range on his outward emotion spectrum.

“I can do it in under two minutes. Want to time me?”

Wiz is our savant head of IT. We became friends when I spilled coffee all over my keyboard and fried my hard drive. I’d been directed to go see some of his underlings who worked on the floor below mine. They’d all said there was no hope for my data.

When pressed they’d told me about a man, their boss, on the second floor. They’d spoken about him like he was some sort of bridge troll, but also said he was my only hope of getting any information back.

So, I’d traipsed down here, unsure if I was being sent on a wild goose chase as part of some prank, and found Wiz huddled in this dark, windowless room.

He’d been as surprised to see me as I’d been to find him. Apparently, I was the first person to come to him since he’d started here a few years prior. He didn’t like people and still doesn’t. He’d demanded to work alone, far from others, and he’d been granted everything he asked for simply because he was the best at what he did.

By the following morning, he’d retrieved all of my data.

I bought him a funny mug to thank him and came back two days later to give it to him. He’d been unprepared to receive the gift and had stared at my extended hand for a good minute before tentatively reaching for it.

He’d turned back around to face his computer and hadn’t said a word. But when I moved to walk out the door, he’d told me to stay.

So, I had.

An unlikely friendship had grown from there, one of few words exchanged but mutual understanding nonetheless.

Now, I come down here to escape and he lets me stay for the few moments of socialization. I never overstay my welcome; I know when he starts to get fidgety that he wants to be left alone.

I sigh. “No, if his computer crashes he’s just going to find a way to blame and yell at me. Thank you though.”

He grunts in acknowledgment and we sit in comfortable silence for a few moments before he asks.

“So what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

The truth is, I’m bursting for freedom.

I’ve spent all my life working to prove I’m good enough to make up for the mortal sin of being born a girl, and it isn’t going to matter anyway because my father is going to force my brother into my CEO role.

I’m weddable and beddable, those are the only assets of mine that my father sees as being valuable to him.

“You’re just going to take it lying down? That doesn’t seem like you.” Wiz’s voice holds no trace of judgment. As always, he’s making an astute inference based on a series of facts he knows about me.

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