My smile is lopsided. “And Looking Glass can provide all that? Impressive.”
I sound like me and . . . not like me. Inside I’m struggling to hold up and Norcut smiles like she hears the wavering too.
It makes her tilt closer. “Forget the degree. Forget the job. Forget the safety we provide. I want you to think about the real opportunity I’m giving you. You’ll be with your own kind of people. Haven’t you always wanted to belong?”
I know my answer already and it isn’t for Bren—even though I want to go home and I want to make her proud. And it isn’t for Lily—even though I know she would want me to stay here until I’m safe. It’s for me. I look at her and say, “Yes.”
Norcut smiles. “Then let me show you how.”
7
I leave Norcut’s office with my own key card and a rough schedule for the next two weeks. I’ll have work, work, more work—oh, and school. The class work binder is filled with color-coded handouts and homework, most of it picking up right where I left off at home. Norcut and Bren must’ve coordinated with my teachers.
In the meantime, I’m supposed to take over some of Alex’s accounts until they see what I can do. I agreed, but it’s a weird feeling. I’ve spent so much time hiding what I can do; I have no idea how to show it to someone.
I shut the office door behind me and lean against the frame, turning the key card around and around in my hand. There’s a scuffing noise to my left and I jump. Alex. The Thief with Skills. Her hands are jammed in her hoodie again, but her eyes are watchful. Expectant.
“Well?” she prompts.
I don’t have any idea what to say. I shrug. “It’s not like I have a choice. If I want to go home—”
“You always have a choice.”
I pass Alex and stop, realizing that even though I know I need to go down one floor to get to my room, I have no idea which room is actually mine.
Alex comes closer. We’re practically toe to toe now, staring at each other. “She thinks I belong here,” I say at last.
“Maybe you do. It wouldn’t be the worst thing, would it? To be able to do what you love?”
I start to say something about how I don’t love hacking. It wasn’t born out of love. I didn’t learn it out of love. It was survival. But that’s not really the point anymore, is it? Somewhere along the line, what I did for my dad and Joe became part of me. And now I have to do something with it.
I’m just not sure what that means.
“You want to see our room?” Alex asks.
“Yeah.” I rub my eyes. There’s a dull, unrelenting thump behind them, just enough to make me grouchy. Well, grouchier. “That would be great.”
We shuffle along in silence until we reach the elevator bank. The security cameras catch my attention again. I bump my chin toward the nearest one. “So the security camera thing . . . ?”
“Is to keep us safe.” Alex swipes her card and watches the lights above the elevator doors. “They’re on both floors and in all the common areas. Nothing near the work stations though and nothing in our rooms, of course.”
Of course. It still seems weird. Paranoid.
Then again, if I stuffed my office full of people like me, I’d be paranoid too.
“So the elevator can only be accessed by key cards?” I ask. The doors ding open and we step inside. Alex presses the down button.
“Yeah, but key cards can be stolen. Ask me how I know.” She turns to me, an enormous grin slung across her face. “No, really, ask me.”
Now I’m grinning. Norcut made the whole situation seem kind of life-and-death, but Alex makes it sound like fun. We bump to a stop and the doors reopen. Alex points to the left and we trail down the hallway.
The sun’s shifted in the sky, throwing light across the polished floor and along the walls. Funny how the white seemed so stark before. There’s something awfully clean about it now.
“This is us,” Alex says, stopping at a frosted glass door. There’s a security pad here too. She swipes and the light on the box turns green, buzzing us in. “I know what you’re thinking—it seems excessive—but seriously, would you want Kent going through our stuff?”
“God, no.”
“Exactly. Also? I went through your stuff.”
I stare at her.
Alex shrugs. If she’s trying for sorry, she’s missing it by a mile. “I think it’s important for us to be honest with each other.”
“I honestly want you to stay out of my things.”
She grins. “Fair enough. Also? I don’t sleep in the dark. Not anymore. You cool with that?”
“Extremely.”