Page 42 of Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World
“Call me when you wake up tomorrow, okay? I want to know that you’re safe.”
Nodding, I pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Okay. You be safe as well. Text me when you get home.”
I put my hand on the door to my building, then paused to watch Eric walk away. He’d almost been hurt because of me, and I couldn’t let that happen again. Tomorrow, I would tell Ms.Crenshaw everything. My termination was a foregone conclusion, but at least Eric would be safe. The executive board could stop the Thing on theirown, once I explained what I’d done, and the city would return to normal.
Too bad I wouldn’t be around to see it.
Amira was understandably horrified when I told her what had happened. “How awful,” she said as she wrapped herself around me in a hug. “But you’re okay?”
“Just a little shaken up.”
“I’m so glad Eric was there.” The side of her face pressed against my chest, she looked up at me as she added, “It’s very romantic of him. Saving you, I mean.”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “He’s amazing. I’ve really fallen for him.”
She pushed herself away from me so that she could peer up into my face. “Then why do you sound so sad?”
I forced myself to smile. “Because nothing lasts forever,” I told her quietly.
Later, in my bedroom, I fished the strange pendant out of my pocket and studied it again. Then I dropped it into the messenger bag I took to work. I’d hand it over to Ms.Crenshaw when I confessed my sins. Hopefully I could persuade her to call off the Firing Squad before I was terminated. Eric and Amira didn’t deserve to suffer for my mistakes. No one did, I admitted grudgingly. Well, except for the bullies, and the stupid, and the people who got everything because they were beautiful. They deserved to suffer for the rest of time.
I felt a strange kind of peace as I waited for sleep to come. Tomorrow, I’d face the consequences of my choices. It wasn’t how I’d wanted my story to end, but as long as the people I cared about were safe, it would have to be enough.
Fifteen
Bright and early on Mondaymorning, I pushed through the revolving doors of Dark Enterprises with Ms.Crenshaw’s Starbucks order in my hand. I’d dressed in my favorite cardigan, and I held my head high as I marched across the lobby for the last time. I was doing the right thing, I told myself. Theheroicthing. I felt heroic, too, as I gave the receptionist a firm nod—she didn’t notice, but that was fine—on my way to the elevators.I’m saving everyone in this building, I reflected humbly,by turning myself in. God, I was so brave.
I’d called Eric on my way into work, just to hear his voice one last time, but he hadn’t picked up. He hadn’t responded to my texts, either. Maybe he was in an early-morning meeting about finance or whatever. I was going to try again, and keep trying, until I spoke to him. I’d already planned what I was going to say, something beautiful and inspirational whose real meaning he would only appreciate after I was gone. Then he would treasure those final words for the rest of his life, weeping softly whenever he recalled them. Maybe hewould have them tattooed somewhere sexy, like across his chest or around one thigh.
I was thinking about Eric’s thighs when the building’s wards snapped shut around me. It was a strange and terrifying sensation, the air itself tightening like an invisible shroud across every inch of my body. I froze midstride, one foot in the air, as sigils made of purple light etched themselves onto the floor beneath me, causing the stone around them to sizzle. My gaze darted wildly as I struggled to move. The young woman seated behind the receptionist’s desk at the center of the lobby was certainly watching me now. Other employees gave me curious glances as they walked past, but no one stopped to help. I wouldn’t have, either. Best not to get involved with someone who wouldn’t make it to the end of the day.
I should have anticipated this. Of course DE wouldn’t let me stroll up to the thirteenth floor as if this were an ordinary day. They’d already sent a death squad after me—they weren’t taking any chances.
I stood there for what felt like hours until one of the elevators chimed and disgorged a team of four Security personnel. Dressed identically in black suits and sporting the plastic earpieces I associated with the Secret Service, they surrounded me without saying a word. One of them bent down to tap the burning sigils with a narrow silver rod and I lurched forward, no longer supported by the air. Strong hands gripped my arms, keeping me upright, as someone plucked the coffee out of my hand and someone else grabbed the messenger bag off my shoulder. Then I was hustled into the elevator so fast that my shoes barely touched the ground.
The four of them practically filled the elevator by themselves, leaving me crushed between their hulking forms as the doors rolledclosed. My heart hammered away in my chest and I tasted bile in the back of my throat, but I didn’t speak as the elevator began to rise smoothly. I was determined to meet my fate with dignity and calm.
We came to a halt almost immediately at the second floor, home to Janitorial Services as well as Security. Despite my best efforts at self-control, I started breathing in short, harsh gasps as they dragged me down a dimly lit corridor. I couldn’t see anything except for the broad back of the guard in front of me, but everything was quiet apart from the brisk, heavy footsteps of the people around me. It was too quiet, in fact. Where were the screams, the pleas for mercy? I expected to hear them here of all places, and their absence was the scariest detail of all.
The four Security personnel brought me to an unmarked door and then into a small room that looked like it had been ripped from a darkly Scandinavian police procedural—sleek metal table, harsh lights, walls covered with a mosaic of panels in ten different shades of gray. I was shoved into a chair at the table with such force that my teeth clicked together, and then three of the towering people left. The one who remained was the biggest, with a neck significantly wider than his head.
“Please make it quick,” I said in a shaking voice as he took up a position behind me.
“Be quiet,” he rumbled.
“Okay, but—”
“If you don’t shut up,” he said in an accent that was pure New York, “I’m gonna break your teeth.”
I shut up.
Minutes crawled past as I sat there, hands twisting anxiously in my lap. When the door finally swung open and Ms.Crenshawwalked in, I experienced a rush of terror mingled with relief. The moment had arrived at last. I’d hoped to speak to her alone, to explain why I’d done what I’d done, but this would have to do.
Her gaze was icily dispassionate as she stood across the table from me, arms folded. “Good morning, Colin.”
“Ms.Crenshaw, I need to tell you—”
All she did was lift a hand, but it stopped my breathless words far more effectively than any threat of physical violence. “When you entered the building this morning, our protective wards detected the signature of certain unwelcome magicks. Upon investigation of your bag, our people found this.” Leaning down, she placed a small object on the table in front of me.
