"It's fine." I am slightly breathless, which is ridiculous because I am a professional woman with an excellent credit score and absolutely no business getting flustered by incidental finger contact with my new Orc boss. I pull the document toward me and pretend to study it with great interest while my pulse gradually returns to something approaching normal.
We work in charged silence for the next several minutes, passing documents back and forth across the small desk, our arms and hands and occasionally shoulders making contact with a frequency that stops feeling accidental after the third or fourth occurrence. Knox asks questions about accounting terminology that reveal surprising depths of financial understanding beneath his warrior rhetoric, and I find myself slipping into thecomfortable rhythm of explanation and analysis, my anxiety about the foreclosure temporarily displaced by the familiar pleasure of making complex numbers tell a coherent story.
"This is genuinely concerning," I say, tapping my pen against a particularly damning expense report. "The previous management was spending almost forty percent of revenue on what they're calling 'client entertainment,' which appears to mostly be golf memberships and expensive dinners that didn't actually generate any new business. We could cut that entirely and redirect the funds to?—"
The lights go out.
The transition from warm lamplight to absolute darkness is so sudden and complete that for a moment I think I've somehow gone blind.
"Power failure. Natural occurrence or deliberate sabotage?"
"I don't know." I fumble for my phone, its screen providing a weak glow that barely penetrates the shadows pressing in around us. "The building's electrical system has been having issues for months, but a complete blackout like this is?—"
I stop talking because something else has just occurred to me, something that sends a cold spike of unease through me. I push back from my chair and pick my way carefully toward the door, my phone's light barely sufficient to keep me from tripping over the furniture, and when I reach the handle and try to turn it, my worst suspicion is confirmed.
The door doesn't budge.
I try again, putting my weight into it this time, but the result is the same. The handle turns freely, but the door itself remains firmly, immovably closed, as if something on the other side is holding it in place.
"Knox, the door is locked. From the outside."
Behind me, I hear the creak of his chair as Knox rises to his feet, his form displacing the darkness as he moves toward me."Locked from the outside," he repeats. "That is not a natural occurrence."
"No," I agree, pressing my back against the unyielding door and trying very hard not to think about how small this room suddenly feels, how close Knox is standing, and how very, very dark it is. "It's really not."
4
KNOX
The darkness does not trouble me. I have fought in caverns beneath mountains where no light has touched stone since the world was young, navigated tunnels carved by my ancestors through solid bedrock, and tracked enemies through moonless nights when the only illumination came from the distant fires of burning enemy encampments. Darkness is an old companion, familiar and workable, a tactical consideration rather than an obstacle.
What troubles me is the sharp intake of breath I hear from Cypress, the subtle tremor in her when she confirms that the door has been sealed against us, and the way her small frame presses against the unyielding wood as if she can somehow will it open through sheer determination. She is frightened, and the knowledge sends something hot and protective surging through me, an instinct older than language or civilization that demands I eliminate whatever threat has caused this reaction in her.
"Step aside, little valkyrie. I will handle this."
The faint glow of her phone shifts as she moves away from the door, and I can see the pale oval of her face in the weak light, her eyes wide and dark, her lips slightly parted. She does notargue with me, does not question my capability, simply trusts that I will resolve this situation, and that trust settles into my bones like warmth after a long winter march.
I approach the door and run my hands along its frame, my fingers finding the electronic lock mechanism that has been engaged from the outside. The technology is unfamiliar to me in its specifics, but the principle is simple enough. Something is holding this door closed, and that something is attached to the wall by screws and mounting brackets and the thin membrane of drywall that humans use to construct their buildings. In the fortresses of my homeland, such barriers are made from stone and iron, requiring siege equipment and coordinated assault teams to breach. Here, in this place of paper and promises, the obstacles are far more fragile.
I dig my fingers into the gap between the lock mechanism and the wall, feeling the resistance of the hardware, the tension of the wires running into the electronic components, the structural weakness of the surrounding materials. My claws find purchase in the soft drywall, sinking into the surface like blades into yielding flesh, and I brace my feet against the floor and pull.
The sound is deeply satisfying. Metal shrieks as screws are torn from their anchors, drywall crumbles and cracks under the pressure, and the entire lock assembly comes away from the wall in a shower of white dust and sparking wires, leaving a ragged hole where the mechanism used to be. I toss the destroyed hardware aside and push the door open with my shoulder, and it swings wide into the darkened hallway beyond, offering us freedom and fresh air and the relief of no longer being trapped in that confined space.
"There. The barrier has been removed."
"You just..." She gestures at the hole in the wall, the dangling wires, the scattered debris. "You ripped it out. With your hands."
"The obstacle required removal. I removed it." I do not understand her apparent shock. "Was there a preferred method of extraction that I overlooked? A specific protocol for dealing with sabotaged door mechanisms that I should have consulted?"
She laughs, the sound slightly unsteady but genuine. "No, that was extremely effective. I just wasn't expecting you to demolish the wall."
"Demolition is often the most efficient path to victory." I step into the hallway and scan the darkness for any sign of the saboteurs who arranged our imprisonment, but the floor appears deserted, the other offices empty and silent. "We should not remain here. Whoever locked us in may return to verify their handiwork, and I prefer to choose my battlegrounds rather than have them chosen for me."
Cypress nods and gathers her bag from the small office, her phone's light bobbing as she moves. I notice that she does not waste time with unnecessary questions or delays, simply accepts my tactical assessment and prepares to move. It is a quality I have observed in the best warriors of my clan, the ability to adapt quickly to changing circumstances without allowing fear or confusion to slow their response.
We make our way through the darkened building, my hand occasionally finding Cypress's elbow to guide her around obstacles she cannot see in the inadequate light of her phone. The emergency stairs are functional despite the power outage, and we descend floor by floor, the echo of our footsteps bouncing off concrete walls and metal railings. I keep myself positioned between her and any potential ambush points, my senses alert for the slightest indication of hostile presence, but we encounter no one on our journey downward.
The lobby is equally deserted when we emerge, the security desk abandoned and the front doors hanging open to the evening air. Streetlights provide enough illumination to navigateby, and I guide Cypress out onto the sidewalk, where the normal rhythms of human city life continue uninterrupted by the drama that has unfolded in the building behind us.
