Chapter 303: Thresholds
I couldn’t help, but be uneasy and move my feet from side to side as I watched the numbers on the elevator screen slowly rise up to the penthouse. The only sound I could hear was that of the steady and quiet buzzing.
I shrugged, hopping to release some of the tension that my shoulders had pent up since I left the home of Mary Steward. Though when the doors finally opened and I was face to face with the hallway leading to Alexis’s office, the tension hadn’t slowed down. Not on the way back, not on the slow climb up our towering apartment and not even now.
By now, it was late enough that most lights in hour home were dimmed down. Our living room emitted a soft glow of warm hues like red and orange while out kitchen had the aroma of tea and freshly used paper seeping out of it. Someone had likely brewed a cup hours earlier and it was left behind. It was probably Sienna has she drinks the most tea of anyone here.
I walked past our sofas, the shelves that were filled with magazines and instructional guides that I had never bothered to read and past our glass table that was marked with light scratches and water stains much to Evelyn’s annoyance.
I paused in front of Alexis’s door, lifting a hand, letting it hover for a moment before I knocked.
"Come in."
Her voice was calm, as always, carrying that quiet firmness that never felt like an order, only an invitation. I pushed the door open, stepping inside.
Her office never changed in appearance. It was the same shelves full of medicals books and small potted plants that were miraculously alive despite the lack of natural lighting. There was her main desk of operations that had a large stack pile of files with a lamp to the side, illuminating the papers and the wood supporting them. Alexis was sitting behind it, looking at the tablet she always uses as she writes down notes on a piece of paper to the side. She eventually puts the tablet down.
"You’ve been coming by a lot lately," she said, her tone neutral, her eyes flicking up to meet mine.
I didn’t sit right away. I let the silence stretch between us, rolling my jaw, trying to find the words that had been knotting themselves in my chest since I watched the hacker disappear down that street.
"I know," I said finally, stepping forward and lowering myself into the chair across from her. The leather creaked under my weight, too loud in the quiet. "It’s... been a long week."