Hart grins at me. “The driver’ll bring your stuff up. I’ll have it left in your room. See you around, okay?”
“Sure.” The elevator doors close behind me and I try not to wince. Like Alex implied, it’s not as if we’re going anywhere. We watch Hart lope down the hallway, disappearing around a bend, and when I turn to Alex, she’s already facing me.
“So what’s your deal?” she asks, leaning closer.
“Deal?”
Alex’s sigh is long and labored. “You’re not one of those geeks, are you?”
“What does that mean?”
“The kind with personal-space issues and no social skills.”
“No.” Well, not totally. I cross both arms over my chest and glare at her, but it’s a little hard to look tough since Alex has at least three inches on me.
“So you have issues?” she asks.
“Doesn’t everyone?”
Alex’s coffee-colored eyes narrow, but her mouth twitches like she might be amused. “C’mon.”
I spend maybe ten minutes with the infirmary doctor, getting cleaned up and checked over before being told to “run along.” It’s every bit as condescending as it sounds.
“Charming, isn’t she?” Alex asks after I get shoved back into the hallway.
I dry swallow two of the pain pills I was given and nod. “I don’t even know her name.”
“No point. We cycle through doctors pretty quickly. The other guys are . . . challenging to work with?” Alex grins. “Yeah, let’s go with that. Hurry it up or we’re going to be late.”
She pivots and stalks off like a supermodel on the runway, leaving me to trail along after her, my Chucks slapping against the shiny marble tile. The surrounding downtown buildings are close, but late-afternoon sunlight still slants through the windows, making Looking Glass’s white walls and floors almost blinding. The hallway’s lined with enormous abstract paintings. The blues and greens make my chest ache and we’re almost to the windows before I realize why: They’re the same shade of blue and green that always stained Griff’s hands.
He drew in ink, but he wanted to work with oil paints.
“Hey.” Alex snaps her fingers and I jerk my attention to her, cheeks going hot. “Stop gawking. We’re on the fortieth floor. You’ll be assigned a key card for access to this floor and the one above it.”
“What’s upstairs?”
“The cubicle ghetto mostly—computer stations and stuff.” The corridor splits and Alex nods her head to the right. “Kitchen’s down there. Technically, we’re all supposed to help with meals, but after Kent spiked everyone’s food with laxatives last year, Hart hired Mrs. Bascombe to take care of it.”
My feet stall and I have to push myself to keep pace. “Last year? How long have you been here?”
“Thirteen months, eighteen days.”
“Where were you before?”
Alex tugs one hand through her ponytail, dark curls tangling in her fingers. “Around. I did contract work. Anyway, bedrooms, bathrooms, and common areas are on this floor.”
We make another turn, hit another hallway. It’s the same deal. Lots of glass. Lots of light. Cameras everywhere. I sneak peeks as we pass. Interesting. They’re fixed, meaning they don’t pan like other cameras do. It’s just one continuous image.
Which can make them easier to trick.
Alex slides me a sideways look. “What are you? A senior in high school?”
“Junior.”
“Ugh. I hated junior year. Anyway, it’s basically glorified homeschooling around here. We check in with our teachers, get assignments, return the assignments, get a grade.”
“Are they any good? The teachers, I mean.”
“If you’re smart enough to be here, it shouldn’t matter.” Alex pauses, and when she continues, she’s trying to sound nicer. “I know it’s a lot. You’ll have course work plus the client stuff they’ll assign you, but what else are we going to do, you know?”
We make another turn and return to the foyer. Basically, the entire layout is one big hamster-on-a-wheel circle and Alex’s point couldn’t have been made better. My entire life has been reduced to, maybe, eight thousand square feet. It’s definitely not a prison, but . . .
“That’s pretty much it.” Alex faces me, hands still deep in her hoodie’s pocket, and I notice again how old her eyes seem. They’re beaten down. Tired. That doesn’t happen naturally. No one starts life looking like that. Things have to happen. People have to do things to you.
I know. I see it every time I look in the mirror. Seeing it in her though? It’s a sickening jolt. She’s like me.