Page 7 of The Key to Fear
The rosy red of Astrid’s cheeks deepened.Bits.That was the one thing that would embarrass Astrid every time.Each coin her family made seemed to add to her shame.Elodie didn’t understand.If she had that much money, she’d be long gone.Across the ocean and deeply rooted in foreign lands.Westfall would become nothing more than the place she’d come from.The place that made her unique, different from everyone else.Her stomach clenched with the lie.As much as she wanted to believe she’d be anywhere else, her place was in Westfall, with Rhett, in the MediCenter, with her plain, safelife.
Astrid pulled a thick curtain of hair across her face like a mask.“Shut up,” she teased, releasing the dark strands.“We’re working on a new Pearl prototype and need people to test it out.I’ll send one to pick you up.Forfree.”
“A prototype?I’ll have to figure out if I would rather die in a fiery ball or test my luck in some horrible germ attack.”The men and women laying on the bridge, X’s on their chests, flashed behind Elodie’s eyes.“You know what,” she cleared her throat.“That was stupid.Don’t listen to me.I’ll take your freeride.”
Astrid plucked the air with a delicate wave.“Later, later.”
The image filling the side of Elodie’s vision went gray and disappeared as she ended the call and stared up at Westfall’s downtown MediCenter building.Bronze sconces framed the smooth concrete facade, their tines stretching toward the sky like points on acrown.
Elodie’s clear plastic cuff flashed green as she approached the spotless glass doors.They opened noiselessly, their shiny gold handles glinting in the dappled sunlight.How long had it been since anyone had actually touched them?The handles on all of the entrances in the remaining buildings in Zone One were now nothing more than metal jewelry fordoors.
The scent of fresh pine, of the forest after a rainstorm, swirled through theair.
“Is this one of those experiments where someone stands in the middle of the walkway to see whether or not people are gullible enough to start a line behindthem?”
Heat flooded Elodie’s cheeks and she flicked her gaze to the pavement behind her and the owner of the deep, silky voice and source of the piney scent.How had she missed those giant boots clomping up behind her?The boots moved, leaving a dusting of dirt across the red brick.Elodie grimaced.Who even knew where to find that muchdirt?
“Youaregoing in, right?”The owner of the boots spokeagain.
Elodie jerked forward and absentmindedly shook her head at the dingy,mud-splatteredyellow laces.“No.I mean yes.”She forced her attention to the ground beneath the nearly silent shuffling of her brilliantly white sneakers.Maybe she did get lost in her thoughts way too often.“Yes, I—” The glass door clanged surprisingly loud when Elodie smacked into it.
The heavy boots clomped up behind her, bringing with them more of the crisp evergreen scent.“Oh, shit.Are youokay?”
Elodie’s vision danced as she waited for the doors to reopen before attempting to walk through them again.“Yeah.”She rubbed the side of her head and stayed facing forward, refusing to look at whoever had just witnessed what had to be the most embarrassing moment of her life.The doors opened and Elodie concentrated on proceeding as calmly andincident-freeas possible to the bay of elevators.“Eleven,” she squeaked after scanning her cuff beneath the elevator’s controlpanel.
The heavy, crunchy footsteps continued to shadow her.Elodie pressed her eyelids shut and held her cool palm against her flaming cheek as she waited to see which elevator would descendfirst.
Another beep of the control panel.“Twelve,” the boots’ owner said with a muffledgroan.
Or maybe Elodie was the one groaning.
Her eyelids fluttered open and she cast a sideways glance at the dirty brown boots waiting by her side.There was no way she could board an elevator and ride all the way to the eleventh floor with that forest scent, with someone who had just watched her walk into a door.Not with the morning she’d been having.She smoothed her wet hair over the tender knot forming on the side of herhead.
An elevator chimed its arrival, and Elodie darted away from the opening doors and the heavy boots.
Today seemed like a really good day to take the stairs.
IV
“Andthe key to our future.The key toourfuture.Thekeyto ourfuture.”Blair bit down on her nail, silently scolded herself, and then clasped her hands in front of her as she hurried down the MediCenter’sglass-linedcorridor.“Damn.I could’ve done better.That’s the worst part about going live.There’s no opportunity to make adjustments or edits.”
“Nonsense.You did great.”Blair’s new assistant’s words were rushed and breathy as her short legs worked to keep up.“Really, Ms.Scott, you are an asset.A real asset.Everybody thinks so.”Her assistant’s constant need to please made Blair’s teethhurt.
“Your name,” Blair snapped her fingers.“I’ve forgotten it already.”
“Wyndham, Ms.Scott.Maxine Wyndham.”
Sure, Blair might seem a bit tough, and may have gone through more assistants than years she’d been alive, but that was only because none of them were a right fit.She needed someone dedicated.As dedicated as she was.And that wasn’t easy tofind.
Blair would have a cot brought to her office at Westfall’s downtown MediCenter, which served as the Key Corp headquarters of the New American West Coast, if it meant a greater career edge.She’d once considered curling up on her plush throw rug, but felt it would create the wrong optics.Each one of the assistants Career Placement had assigned her had pretended to feel the way she did, but it was obvious they didn’t possess the same strain of dedication Blair had coursing through her veins.She’d even weighed letting her brother give it a shot, but she knew how that would end.
The Leightons, Blair’s parents, had both worked hard for the long, prestigious titles they’d tacked in front of their surnames.After their deaths, Cath Scott had adopted Blair, and the Key had pressured her to take Cath’s last name.Unity, that’s what the corporation had been striving after.That’s how battles were won and power reigned, and Blair understood those facts completely.It was a fair trade-off.The silver lining to her unbelievably stormy life.A new last name that practically oozed power in exchange for her fate as an orphan.Even if she’d had a choice, she would have taken that name.Cath had not only completed a doctorate but had also risen to director of Career Placement at the MediCenter.That made Blair as close to an example ofborn and raised inas anyone was going toget.
But, for some reason, every assistant placed with Blair assumed that her desire to be on top meant that she needed some kind of yes person.That, however, was not how the saying went.Behind every strong woman was a sea of strong women,notbehind every strong woman was a sea ofyes-mindeddrones.Why didn’t anyone understandthat?
Blair turned down the corridor that led to her office and stopped short of the door.“Ms.Wyndham.”She swiveled to face her pretty new assistant.“I appreciate all you’ve done...”
Black.
