“Let me know if there’s anything I can do for the Lakehouse Retreat,” she said.
I walked her to the door, as much to make sure she left, as to greet Hazel. I held out a hand to help Hazel stand up.
“Hazel Maben?” I asked.
“Guilty as charged,” she said. She hoisted herself up, declining my hand. “My abductor—I mean,my sister’s fiancé, must have told you about me.”
Hazel had been one of Eric’s plants, an unknowing victim in a crime ring larger than she could have imagined. I had been fortunate to play the middle role. Hazel had been lucky to survive both sides.
“Grant told me,” I said. She blushed, then shrugged.
After I grabbed my briefcase and locked the office, we headed for the staircase. I stopped outside of the corridor, searching the room index. Where had Mara been placed?
Jessica King, Carl Lowe, Michael Packer, and Mara Slate, Room 454.Around the corner from my office.
“I need to check something,” I said, and headed towards the room. It was unlikely that Mara would be there, but if she was, I would push her again, see if she still had that fire.
Their joint office was unlocked. I held the door open; three of the desks full of gadgets and books, school computers crammed with post-it notes, and finally, the last desk. A single copy of Florence Berkley’sThe Rising Illusionplaced in the middle, the purple and black cover pristine.
It made sense that Mara would be drawn to Berkley. They had the same unnerving momentum. The inability to give up, despite the power dynamics.
“You’re checking out that girl, huh?” Hazel asked. “Mara?”
I shook my head. “Just seeing where the new students are.”
At the entrance lobby café, we took a seat at a circular table. It was my preferred place of one-on-one tutoring with anyone from the Afterglow. In the open lobby, it was much easier to see other ears and eyes approaching, should the conversation turn to indecent topics.
My instincts told me it had been Mara’s copy ofThe Rising Illusion. With Berkley as her only necessity in the office, what topics of dominance, submission, and debasement would Mara discuss?
Hazel cleared her throat. I turned towards her.
“We’re studying for the GED?” I asked.
“I have my diploma, thanks. But no. I just need to pass that stupid essay exam so I don’t have to take the writing course.”
I started to think of what we needed to cover in that first tutoring session, and yet my mind still wandered to Mara. If Mara was seen as too young to be in the doctoral program, that meant she may have taken similar exams, like Hazel, in order to expedite the undergraduate process. But Hazel didn’t seem interested in the subject. Mara, on the other hand, simply went after what she wanted.
I gave Hazel a sample timed essay, our diagnostic to decide the course for the coming weeks. As I waited, I thought about my home on Lake Mead. Tonight, I was hosting a party for the members of the Afterglow. The lakehouse was a prime entertaining space, which was one of the many reasons I had purchased it. By now, the cleaning service should have already left, and the concierge would have left the kitchen stocked with nutritional and drinking needs. That left one task for me: moving the dungeon furniture into the appropriate spaces. In all honesty, I didn’t care about the party. I was more interested in going to Club Hades that weekend; I was holding a spanking demo, able to show off my instruments, even the ones I hadn’t used in ages. Perhaps I would use the spiked paddle. It had been ages.
No, I would avoid that one. It wasn’t time yet. There was no one I trusted myself with that object.
After Hazel finished the essay, I glanced at it; it wasn’t long enough, barely more than a few sentences per paragraph, but it seemed to have decent structure.
I wanted to be kind to her. “The Afterglow is having a party at my lakehouse tonight,” I said. She needed it. “You and Grant should come.”
“Please. That guy could barely let me step foot in this building without him, let alone go to a party.” She shuddered at the thought. “But thanks for the invitation.”
“Most of us have stories like yours, more than you realize,” I offered.
“That’s why I agreed to tutoring with you. I knew you couldn’t hate me.”
But what Hazel didn’t understand was that a person could change in a moment’s notice. I had been Eric’s supposed friend, and yet I gave every piece of information I had on him to Zaid, his enemy. Lisa and I had made a pact, for the greater good, to do what it took to get close to Eric. And when it came down to it, I had turned on her, in order to save our lives. But not without ruining her first. Similarly, I could turn on Hazel, and feed her to her enemies. But I had no need to.
And if I agreed to the contest with Mara, I could turn on her too. I could write the opposing essay like I always did, and publish it. I could prove that nothing was ever the way she thought it was. That the world was a dark and cruel place, even in the confines of an essay.
And Mara could turn on me.
Hazel and I stood, and we made plans to meet every week at the same place, at the same time.
But as for the contest, and Mara? I would wait to decide.
