Chapter Text
Caitlyn’s heels made a satisfying clack against each polished granite stair, the sun beating pleasantly on her skin. The transition from winter to spring had her feeling a sensorial greediness reminiscent of her childhood. Every sight, smell, sound—every sensation was like a sweet syrup for her brain to sponge up. The feeling was novel, yet familiar, reminding her of moments in childhood away from the Kiramman estate.
Thoughts of her morning seminar floated to the top of her mind as she pulled her HexTech ID from where it was clipped to her waist, letting out a satisfying whirr of the wire and beep of the scanner.
“Good morning, Sevika.”
The woman at the security booth merely grunted, as she was wont to do, her eyes never leaving her virtual poker game. Caitlyn would be offended, but the exchange had quickly cemented itself as the beginning to her daily ritual at HexTech, and the possibility of jeopardizing her day with its removal was not worth the risk. Her days were perfect, and Sevika’s grunt just happened to be part of it.
The elevator shifted down to the lobby and Caitlyn punctuated a daydream of praise from her professor with its ding, stepping inside. Her mind moved to her docket, using the ride up to the legal floor to sort through her tasks for the day, as she did every day. A smile broke out on her face. Today’s docket included not only one of her rare lunches with Jayce, but another treat: Grayson would be bringing Caitlyn in on an internal investigation.
Shadowing the Chief Compliance Officer definitely had its perks. It had every perk, actually. Learning from an actual Compliance Counselor would’ve been more appropriate to Caitlyn’s transition to the role upon her graduation in a month, but Caitlyn had never been so grateful for her mother’s tendency to pull as many strings as possible. Her clearance was wildly inappropriate for her station as a result, hence her exposure to confidential investigations. Grayson hadn’t told Caitlyn much thus far, but apparently it was big, with the Board potentially having to get involved.
Perhaps mother is embezzling millions. Caitlyn snorted. The esteemed Kiramman fortune, the result of fudged numbers.
Usually, Grayson conducted her more confidential work in the morning, whilst Caitlyn attended class. Two months of diligence and hard work had evidently paid off on Caitlyn’s part, however, as Grayson saw her as the asset she so clearly was. And though she attempted to maintain a pretense of professionalism, Caitlyn could not hide her immense admiration for the older woman. She finally felt alive, and with purpose. Not just purpose, her purpose. Their purpose. Yes, everything was falling into place, and Caitlyn owed it all to her mother.
How silly, to have doubted her.
Caitlyn could finally settle into life, content with its path. It was like a peaceful coming of age, to be passed from her mother’s influence to Grayson’s guiding hands. Her firm, calloused, disciplined—
Her office door was open. Caitlyn blinked, startled out of her inappropriate train of thought. Grayson always left it closed. Caitlyn always stepped off the elevator, always walked the same path between the assistants’ cubicles, and always knocked three times on Grayson’s door.
Maybe greeting Sevika in the lobby wasn’t as important as she thought it was.
A dark head of hair was visible behind Grayson’s desk. The wrong dark head of hair.
“Excuse me? Who are you?” Accusatory—that was the tone Caitlyn’s subconscious decided on before she could collect her manners, or consider that perhaps Grayson got a haircut. And a reverse tan.
A face came into view as someone decidedly not a paler Grayson stood on his feet. He was entirely unfamiliar, and Caitlyn preemptively bristled.
“What are you doing in Grayson’s office?” She spoke again as he opened his mouth, cutting off a sentence he hadn’t even begun. The man looked irritated. Good, he was in the wrong.
“I’m Marcus. Are you Grayson’s assistant? You were supposed to have the power of attorney documents ready for me today, and they’re not here.”
“And what, you decided rifling through her files was the appropriate measure to take?” Caitlyn gestured towards the mess of papers on Grayson’s desk with a little more force than necessary.
What a disrespectful man. Throwing around Grayson’s belongings. Calling me an assistant. Marcus may not know my mother’s name, but my mother will know his by the end of the day, if I have anything to say about it.
“These documents need to be sent to the PTO by noon. Do you expect me to just wait around until Grayson comes back from leave to receive them? Or better yet, until her assistant leisurely strolls in half an hour late just to not know what I’m talking about?” Marcus snapped.
“I am not her—” Caitlyn froze. “Grayson’s on leave?”
A beat passed, and recognition seemed to finally flash behind Marcus’s eyes. His body visibly untensed, then tensed in a new, different way.
“You’re the Kiramman girl.”
Caitlyn stared back, her eyebrows pulled together. “My name is Caitlyn.”
“Yes, right. We briefly met on your first day. Allow me to reintroduce myself—I’m Marcus, I’m the Compliance Counselor assigned to oversee the Patent Prosecution department.”
Caitlyn shook his outstretched hand. “And Grayson?”
Marcus sighed. “We’re not sure exactly, it only happened last night. Some kind of mugging gone wrong in an alleyway down in the Lanes. She’s in the hospital recovering, so she’s on indefinite medical leave. Obviously she tried to keep working from the hospital bed, you know Grayson, but the nurses weren’t having it.”
Caitlyn’s brain went into overdrive. The world was ending. The world was ending, and it was all because Caitlyn was nice to Sevika in the lobby.
This has to be some kind of sick joke. My throat feels so tight. Hazing isn’t usually this cruel and elaborate, is it?
“Sorry to drop that on you then get right back to it, but do you know if the assistant is coming in today? Or where she may have put the POAs?”
A distraction. Caitlyn needed a distraction. Grayson may not be in the office, but her job was still the same. She could spiral later.
“Maddie is an undergraduate, so she comes in around 10am, after her 9am class. I haven’t seen Grayson assign her any patent-related tasks so I’m not sure where she would keep those documents, but I can’t imagine they would be anywhere but her filing cabinet. Was it locked when you tried it?”
Caitlyn walked out of the office over to Maddie’s empty cubicle, expecting Marcus to follow her. A notepad full of doodles on the desk caught her eye.
…That better not be a drawing of me.
Marcus was still in Grayson’s office, papers in hand. “Marcus, I can clean up those papers. Grayson and I have been transitioning to a new way of organizing things in there anyway.”
Caitlyn couldn’t tell if her uneasiness at Marcus came from his presence signifying a major disruption of her routine or if he genuinely was as rude and suspicious as she perceived. Regardless, she wanted him out of Grayson’s office, and was sure Grayson would not want him snooping around her private documents either. He glanced at her, then at the papers in his hand, finally setting them down and joining her. Maddie’s filing cabinet slid open with ease, and was mostly empty.
Why would Marcus jump to rifling through Grayson’s office? I don’t even remember Grayson asking Maddie to do anything for the Patent department, so did he ask her directly? Why wouldn’t he ask his own assistant?
“Ah, here they are. Thank you, Caitlyn.” Marcus straightened up, an unreadable look on his face. His eyes flicked back to Grayson’s office. “You’re still in school as well, correct?”
Caitlyn had a strange and overwhelming urge to lie. “Yes, I receive my JD in approximately a month.” The truth. Where did that urge come from?
“Well, given that both you and Maddie are part-time employees with no completed qualifying degree—” Caitlyn resented his tone, despite his words being the truth, “—it would seem that with Grayson gone, you now fall under my responsibility as the senior-most Compliance Counselor. Until Grayson returns to the office, the two of you will be assigned tasks by me.”
“Grayson assigned Maddie work. I was shadowing Grayson’s responsibilities, I was never assigned independent tasks.” That her entire job function could be so thoroughly upended in the first half hour of the day was unthinkable, and it was even more ludicrous that she should be essentially demoted to Marcus’s assistant alongside Maddie.
Calm down. Caitlyn attempted to reassure herself. Grayson will be back soon anyway, stitched up and ready to work. Caitlyn had no idea what she was talking about.
“Then it’s all the more important that you gain actual experience. We have a ton of backlog with patent prosecution formalities that I want you to execute.”
Caitlyn wracked her brain for what formalities entailed. She couldn’t remember Grayson mentioning the word, which gave her the impression that it was something actual patent agents and their assistants dealt with.
“Formalities?” She frowned. “Is that in our purview as Compliance Counselors?”
Marcus pulled a piece of paper from the stack he held. That page looks different. Did he pull that from Grayson’s office? No, I saw him put that all back down so this must be from Maddie’s cabinet. Being angry with him doesn’t mean he’s doing something wrong.
“Yes, all inventor contracts include an Invention Assignment Clause and a Patent Cooperation Clause,” Marcus impatiently explained, handing Caitlyn the document. He seemed annoyed with her defiance, and Caitlyn couldn’t bring herself to care as she read the highlighted text:
Employee agrees to promptly disclose to the Company any and all inventions, designs, works of authorship, or other creations developed, in whole or in part, during the term of employment, using the Company’s facilities, equipment, or materials, and to assign to the Company all rights, title, and interest in such inventions in a timely manner upon request.
Marcus tapped the page, as if Caitlyn were some kind of moron. “It is company policy; we are compliance officers. Ergo, make them comply. Maddie will be handling proofreading draft patents and requesting corrections, and I want you to handle getting signatures from our inventors. It is my understanding that the Kiramman family is close with Jayce Talis, so you should have no issue. I’ll introduce you to one of the patent assistants who will explain how the documents should be filled out.”
There was no room for argument. Caitlyn was a trapped animal, clawing at the inside of her brain. A nauseated, horrible feeling ripped through her stomach and rose up the back of her spine, leaving her brain electrified. All she could do was nod, and patiently wait for the last bit of bad news she could sense was coming. There was always more bad news. And it was always directed at Caitlyn.
Her body moved itself, numbly following Marcus down the hall to the Patent Prosecution department. She still had her bag slung over her shoulder, weighed down with her textbooks and personal laptop.
“Oh, and Caitlyn?” There it was. Marcus didn’t even turn to look at her. “It’s probably best if we reduce your hours as well, at least until you’re full time.”
Her fist flexed on the strap of her bag, nails digging into her skin. She thought it best not to reply, in fear of what she may say.
The actual meeting with the patent assistant was quick. It was all quick, and boring, and uninteresting, and frustrating, and frankly, offensive. Not just to Caitlyn’s intelligence and pedigree, but the assistant, Deckard, immediately grew vulgar at Marcus’s exit, scratching at what looked like a swollen eye and cheek. Disgusting.
“They just sign their legal name at the bottom and date it, then you sign and date as a witness. So easy a sumprat could do it, right Kiramman?” Deckard had sneered at her, evidently amused that Caitlyn had been knocked from her prestige. Relishing in the snickering that rose up from his neighboring cubicles. He didn’t even know her.
This entire department has a goddamn disrespect problem. Caitlyn noted his name in her mind along with Marcus’s—a hit list she was remiss to think she would ever use. Her reluctance to involve her mother in her life anymore than necessary aside, it was the nuclear option anyway.
“Yes, thanks. You should get that looked at,” Caitlyn couldn’t resist the haughty comment thrown over her shoulder as she stomped off, feeling like a child lashing out. She didn’t stop stomping until she reached the private restroom in the further corner of the floor, away from prying eyes.
Only there, alone, did the tears begin to fall. Anger, shame, and humiliation clouded her eyes and dripped from her nose, smudging the happy face she had worn into the building not even hours earlier. She was choking on her morning, drowning in it. It was eating her alive and all she could do was watch.
No. I could tell my mother. Caitlyn dry heaved in the sink. Who said that? That’s a horrible idea. Grayson will be back soon. Yes, Grayson will be back soon.
Caitlyn quietly sobbed until she felt lightheaded, then grew impatient with her own emotions and felt her face drop into a neutral expression. The woman in the mirror looked horrible. Logically, she knew she was nothing more than a red-faced bully who overreacted at the only good thing in her life being wrested from her control. Her behavior was wrong; her actions were wrong. She was out of control. She robotically splashed cold water on her face and reached into her bag for her makeup, reapplying that same happy face. It felt hollow, but it was all she could do. Her only option.
She stared into her eyes in the mirror until she looked calm, then left for the elevator. She had a job to do.
On the elevator ride down to the lab, Caitlyn thought of Grayson fighting for her life in the hospital. She decided to think of Jayce instead, rolling a list of facts about him over the wrinkles in her brain to smooth them out.
He used to be a giant. Well, he still was, but Caitlyn had caught up in adulthood. Physically, at least. Sometimes in her mind he still felt like that larger-than-life figure who kindly kept an eye on her for her mother. A near-mythological figure—at that point in her life he was everything to Caitlyn: her big brother, her uncle, her family friend, her best friend.
An employee.
Jayce was in grad school when they met, working in a Piltover University biotechnology lab funded by the Kiramman family. Caitlyn never cared much for the explanations of his research or how his position came to be. No, just the attentive way he spoke to her, like he was speaking to her, rather than to some better, imagined version of herself that could be coaxed out with enough commands. Thus, Caitlyn spent most of her free time during his doctorate in the lab alongside him, and her mother surprisingly allowed it. Jayce used to soothe her mother’s worry with humor, joking that Caitlyn was legally forbidden to touch anything lest she have to be added to the inventorship. His ability to make her mother laugh was always a trait Caitlyn admired.
Above all, Jayce was a comforting presence, and Caitlyn needed him. It was a boon that Marcus’s new role for her involved seeing him.
Maybe we can take an early lunch. Caitlyn took a deep breath. The elevator went almost directly to the lab doors, bringing her thoughts of Jayce to an end. They were much sturdier than the elegant wood of Grayson’s door, and far less see-through than the glass doors in the lobby. Even the keycard scanner was bulkier.
Caitlyn often wondered how Jayce heard her knock, but even now when she wasn’t expected for another few hours, the doors almost immediately unlocked and swung out towards her.
Though, where she expected to be grounded by Jayce’s presence, her eyes instead met Sky. Caitlyn half-smiled at her own joke. Her mother never really liked wordplay.
“Hi Miss Kiramman! You’re here to see Jayce?” Sky already had a pair of protective eyewear for Caitlyn, and was moving backwards into the lab. The berth of time between their last meeting had made Caitlyn forget just how good Sky was at anticipating the needs of those around her. Only, she had one detail wrong.
“All three of you today, actually. Your signatures are requested on some documents.”
“Signatures? For Grayson?” Jayce barrelled into the conversation—a welcome familiar mannerism for an unwelcome topic.
“It is nice to see you again, Caitlyn,” Viktor supplemented with a smile. “Heimerdinger has missed you.”
Caitlyn grimaced at the thought of the lab’s elderly pet hamster. It looked more like the contents of a vacuum bag than a hamster each time she saw it. She fed it bits of her lunch salads out of pity, but quite frankly Caitlyn found the creature repelling and played nice for appearance’s sake.
“Nice to see you too, Viktor,” Caitlyn politely returned. “Grayson had an emergency, and will be on extended medical leave for the foreseeable future. I’m working with the patent department until she returns.” Smooth, like she hadn’t been crying not even 10 minutes ago, almost like she had never cried in her whole entire life.
Jayce groaned, pausing his fiddling with the innards of a centrifuge. “That sucks, Cait. I hate those guys.”
“To be fair, their involvement is very essential to the inventive process,” Sky nervously interjected, as if anyone would overhear and punish them for Jayce’s insult.
Viktor scoffed, and Sky quickly added, “But I do find the paperwork tedious.”
“Speaking of,” Jayce reached for the assignments, “are these a new format? They look weird.”
Caitlyn bit back a chastisement as Jayce began signing the papers without reading them. “No one mentioned anything along those lines, but I doubt the actual contents would change without Grayson giving a final sign off on it.”
“I suppose you will be down here more frequently, then?” Viktor questioned, leafing through the papers.
“That’ll be nice!” Sky grinned. Caitlyn was grateful for the optimism, even if she disagreed.
“Marcus is cutting my hours until I graduate, so I’m anticipating being sent down here to collect signatures will be the majority of my work from him, yes.”
“He’s cutting your hours? Can he do that?” Jayce’s eyebrows scrunched. “Does your mom know?”
“No,” Caitlyn shifted on her feet, watching Sky concentrate on reading the assignment. “It should only be for a month, so I would rather her not get worked up over it. I’m sure Grayson will be back by then, or at least able to assign me tasks remotely.”
The message was clear: This stays between us.
Jayce nodded. “Well you’re welcome to hang out down here anytime for as long as you want. No way Marcus notices, and if he does you can just tell him we were giving you a hard time.”
“I’ll be here tomorrow,” Sky spoke up, handing back the completed assignments. “You’re more than welcome to keep me company!”
“Yes, it will be Sky and Heimerdinger here tomorrow having all the fun,” Viktor gave Caitlyn a wry smile. “Jayce and I will be attending a Symposium to present some of our research.”
“You’re both presenting?” Caitlyn teased, already knowing the answer.
“In a perfect world we would be,” Jayce was back to tinkering with the machine parts, beginning to put the lab equipment back together. “And in a perfect world this piece of crap would actually run properly. At this rate Viktor will be backstage faking samples while I stall.”
Sky giggled, and Caitlyn felt the last of her tension fade away as the conversation turned to troubleshooting the broken machine. Marcus was a hitch in her plan, but she could get used to this new normal. Running assignments made it easy enough to avoid him while still adhering to his instructions, and swapping out spending her day with Maddie for the inventor trio was appealing as well. She could even bring her homework down to the lab, and knock that out earlier in the day as well. Then, when she graduated, Marcus would have to restore her hours and give her actual work, putting a deadline on how long his busywork would plague her.
All I have to do is get through the month. No problem.
x-x
“We’re not leaving,” Ekko frowned at Jinx, arms crossed as he waited for security to rifle through her purse. “You need to attend at least one panel or Silco won’t pass you, and I’m not lying for you if he asks me if we went.”
The Boy Wonder, always so virtuous. Jinx rolled her eyes. The convention hall was crowded and noisy, full of nerds and suck ups. It was a relief that the security guard handed back her bag with little scrutiny towards the water bottle that was clearly filled with bright pink Not-Water.
Not a single cosplayer in sight…What a lame convention.
“Fine,” Jinx huffed, moving to lean against a wall underneath a panel directory. She waved her hand up at the screen. “Let’s just go to whichever one starts next so we can leave and go do something actually fun.”
“Looks like that’s the HexTech presentation. CHO Cells: A New Gold Standard in Recombinant Protein Production for Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing,” he read aloud, speaking slightly louder over the snoring noises Jinx made. “You know, CHO stands for Chinese Hamster Ovaries. Could be funny to drink to.”
Jinx barked out a laugh. There’s the Ekko I know! Get lost, Boy Wonder.
“Alright, you’ve convinced me. Let’s get seats in the back,” Jinx grinned.
The conference hall was big, possibly the biggest in the building. Sunlight streamed in from the skylights, slightly washing out the slideshow projected behind the man speaking. Predictably, Jinx grew bored almost immediately, only tuning in to nudge Ekko when it was time for each of them to take a sickly sweet swig of their water bottle cocktail.
“That guy looks familiar,” Ekko leaned over and whispered to Jinx, the smell of alcohol hitting her nose. Even for a presentation on CHO research, they sure were saying Chinese Hamster Ovary a lot more than Jinx anticipated.
“Yeah, probably because he looks like some kind of porny Ken doll,” Jinx replied, doing a poor job of keeping her volume low. A man seated a row ahead slightly turned to look at her, and Jinx stared back.
“No, the one offstage, over there. Who looks like a sickly Victorian child,” Ekko pointed. Jinx craned her neck over the rows of people, and stood so she could get a good look at the man. “Dude, Jinx! Sit, you look insane,” Ekko tugged at her arm, and Jinx waved him off, falling noisily back into her seat. The same man turned, and Jinx stuck out her tongue at him.
“Oh yeah, you’re right. He was involved with Singed’s crap that needed funding. Silco told him to screw off and he ended up selling the design to HexTech, and they renamed it the HexCore. They’re always naming this shit the stupidest things.” Jinx heard someone make a shushing noise, and had half a mind to kick the folding chair in front of her.
Before Ekko could respond, there was a roar of applause, and portions of the audience shuffled to give a standing ovation.
Finally. Jinx used the applause to cover up her swift kick to the chair, jumping up to applaud when the man whipped around. Ekko snickered, lounging back in his chair. Another presentation wouldn’t begin for a while, so Jinx joined him, taking back the bottle to drink another burning gulp and watch the people filter out the aisle next to her.
“I bet their tech breaks all the time. With the volume of samples and cultures they’re making, no way it’s not putting strain on their equipment.” Ekko kicked his feet up, looking thoughtful. “In fact, with how those plate cultures looked, I’d bet they’re doing them all by hand, too.”
The crowd was mostly gone now, with groups of people lingering by the door to chat. Ekko was angled towards the aisle, casually taking over the peoplewatching from Jinx, who conspiratorially leaned towards him.
“Maybe if they would actually implement the HexCores as solenoid replacements,” Jinx hiccuped through a scoff, hearing how drunk she sounded. “I bet these clowns don’t have a single mechanical engineer on their team. No wonder it hasn’t been implemented! I bet HexTech bought up that design and the schematics just sit in someone’s dumb little cubicle, and the morons don’t even know what they have their hands on. I saw the schematics, y’know. Implementing it would be so simple that I’m surprised one of the little hamsters they cut up hasn’t done it by accident yet.”
Ekko had a weird look on his face. Was that offensive? No, I’ve definitely said worse and still made him laugh. Jinx focused her eyes. Wait, he wasn’t even looking at her. Where was he looking?
“We do have a hamster in the lab, but he’s fully intact and alive, I’ll have you know.” That voice sounded familiar.
Uh oh. Jinx pulled her feet down and slowly turned. Great, Mr. Progress and ye olde sicko heard me. How do I get out of this.
“That’s…awesome. Anyway we need to leave,” Jinx hauled Ekko to his feet. He was weirdly heavier than normal.
“How do you know about the HexCore project?” The thinner man spoke this time, his gaze scrutinizing. Vlad? No, that wasn’t right. Not that it mattered, she was out of here.
“Oh, y’know, just word on the street. You’d be surprised what the gossip mill churns out,” Jinx laughed, uncomfortable. If only Ekko would use some of his charm to pull her out of the conversation, but he was no help at all. Worse, he was actively boxing her in by standing in her escape route, and for some reason he didn’t look like he was going to budge. A silent beat went by. “I saw the schematics in Silco’s office when he denied your departmental fund request.”
The presenter guy stepped forward, and Jinx resigned herself to being trapped in a conversation with him. Great. “And I’m right to assume you’re a mechanical engineer?”
“I am,” Jinx puffed up.
“She graduates in a month,” Ekko corrected, ignoring Jinx’s scowl. Oh, so now he steps in. “But she’s Silco’s protégée—his only advisee, actually. The whole department loves her.”
Wow, he must be pretty drunk too, if the compliments are flowing. I wonder if they can tell. Jinx hiccuped behind her hand. Maybe I’m hiding it really well.
Jinx was blinded by the whitest smile she’d ever seen. Suddenly, there was a business card in front of her. Jayce Talis, PhD. HexTech. She felt like an alien on some bizarro planet, unable to gain any bearing in this whole exchange.
“Viktor and I need to get to our next panel, but I’d love to have a more in-depth conversation another time where you share your thoughts on implementing HexCores. I could show you the lab and what we’re working with. I think you have a lot to offer HexTech, if you’re interested.” Ekko reached around Jinx and plucked the business card out of Jayce’s hand, giving a bright smile in return.
“She’s interested,” he answered for her, thankfully. “She’ll email you her resumé.” Everything was moving at a hundred miles an hour. Silco was going to have the most smug look on his face when Jinx reported back.
“I would advise you arrive sober,” Viktor deadpanned. Damn it, he noticed. “We would not want you giving the hamster a bad influence.”
Jinx couldn’t help but burst into a cackle, caught off guard. If I were sober I’d be offended. But then again if I were sober he wouldn’t have said that.
“Can do,” she exaggerated her slurred speech and gave a sloppy salute, earning laughs from the men in front of her and an elbow to the spine from the man behind her. She held the salute as they left the auditorium, then spun around to Ekko with her mouth open.
“Wow, that went way better than I thought it would.”
“I knew it! You set me up, you knew they were standing right there and you baited me into talking shit!”
“No, I baited you into talking shop. You’re the one who decided to say the most offensive sentence possible.” Ekko ran a hand over his forehead. “I saw Viktor looking at you a lot, I think he recognized you, too.”
Jinx snatched the business card out of Ekko’s grasp, waving it in his face. “Well, mission accomplished. I’ve got the golden ticket: a job offer at the biggest biotech company on the planet. Let’s go get wasted!”
Ekko laughed in disbelief. “You’re already wasted! You’re wasted with a job offer. You’re unbelievable!”
Jinx doubled over laughing, then snapped to serious. “Ekko, we need to get the fuck out of here.”
Jinx dedicated the first shot of the night to Chinese Hamster Ovaries. And the second, and the third, and then who knows. The whole night turned into snapshots as the drinks kicked in, but no amount of drinking and dancing could take away the weight of that business card in her purse. At the end of a line of Shimmer in the bathroom, Jinx suddenly found herself alone at the bar with a completed email addressed to [email protected], resumé attached.
She swayed on the barstool, a hundred voices from a hundred people all speaking over each other and arguing in her mind, and all competing with the music thumping at her chest. Jinx couldn’t tell if she was drooling as she fought double vision. Then, in a moment, she was stumbling on the train; another moment: she was puking in a bush; she was throwing cigarette butts off her apartment building’s roof; she was sweating on her bathroom floor; she was texting her sister nonsense; she was pouring water down Ekko’s throat. A voice cut through the noise. I think you’re too smart to spend your life in a bar. Vander.
Jinx woke up to a calendar invitation for an interview.