Chapter 29 Guilt and Selfish Hope
Sensation, gravity, and the shriek of her alarm slammed into her. She jerked her head up, drawing her fists up even as she pushed away from him. He didn’t move or even seem like he would, leaning calmly against the wall several feet away, relaxed and eyeing her on the floor.
Of course… it just had to be Dorian to see her like this.
Lydia swallowed down the new wave of bile. Breathed and focused on the man standing there.
“… or are you getting paid to threaten guests now?”
She took in a shuddering breath, lowering her fists and her gaze, but keeping him in her peripheral.
“Neither.” She dragged the stupid package and folder toward her, stuffing both in her bag. “Is lurking and startling the help your new hobby?”
“We’ll see.”
She grit her teeth and slipped the bag over her head. The anger burning at the back of her throat was enough to make her scream, but she forced her posture to relax, pushed to her feet, and pulled out her phone, grateful that either he didn’t think anything was off or he didn’t care enough to ask.
“I don’t suppose you’re here to clock in?”
He hummed. “Wrong building for that.”
“I don’t suppose you’re not going to cut the cleaning block short and then complain about it?”
He worked his jaw and shifted. A patch of red at his throat caught her eye, and she suppressed a smile. Bet whatever they washed his clothes in had torn him up. Was it driving him crazy not to scratch? Karma was kicking his ass, had to be, so at least something was still right with the world.
What had she done in some past life for this to be her karma?
Or maybe this was just her karma from this life?
Perhaps… she should have just let herself sink and vanish into the carpet, too.
Her eyes stung. She shut her eyes and clenched her fists tighter until the points of pain in her palms, the weight of her body pressing her feet into the worn-thin soles of her shoes, and the scent of expensive air freshener filled her up and grounded her.
“Have you gotten around to answering my follow-up questions?” Lydia asked, her voice flat and hollow, drifting up from somewhere inside her that still gave a damn. “I’d hate to bring the wrong supplies and have to double back.”
He pulled out his phone. “I’ll get it done.”
“My shift starts in about an hour.”
“See you there, maid.”
She walked past him, taking her time heading to the dispatch area. She was down another corridor and settled on a set of stairs when it hit her.
Why had he been near that area? She hadn’t been far from Becker’s office.
He had to be connected to this fucking Society that planned to whore her out to its members and initiates. She pushed to her feet, and the nausea simmered down beneath the fury.
She was definitely going to milk the clock for all she could. It was least he and his psycho friends could do before making her sell herself for her family’s survival.
Never had his emotions been so fucking confusing, irritating, and fucking predictable.
He should consider seeing someone about it, but fuck all if he wanted to chance the Society having any more of a view into his fucking life.
A derisive, misery-loves-company kind of glee softened only by the beginnings of guilt swelled in him.
Irritation because it wasn’t his guilt to bear.
Sympathy because he knew what that fucking folder and envelope meant.
And just the beginnings of hope that had no place in his chest only made it all worse.
He was an asshole, no better than Vincent, his father, or any Knox or fucked up, willing member of this fucking Society for having an inkling of hope.
Bullshit, selfish, hollow hope.
He didn’t know what to do with it or how to understand it, even after he’d answered her incredibly pointed and intelligent questions about the state of his villa and settled into this little parlor to brood over his new drink.
He’d thought he was better than this.
That little spark was a full-on flame now, and there was nothing he could do to put it out on his own.
He couldn’t get her out of his mind or the hopeless frustration, teetering on resignation, on her face. The fear that had made her eyes go wide and haunted her above her mask. She’d been shiny with sweat and a bit ashen beneath the odd flush, like she had a fever or something.
The way she had looked right through him, ready to strike and run from the floor, resonated through him, skipping through the halls of his mind and opening all the doors he’d thought he’d locked over the years.
She’d been terrified, not of him but of whatever the administrator who gave her the folder told her.
He could guess.
No.
He didn’t have to guess. He knew what the Society tended to use lower-class women and men for. Holdovers, playthings, and objects of interest for their members.
His own mother had nearly been pulled into that web. He’d seen how it had turned out for others. Some of them had taken the money and run as soon as they could to live quiet little lives far away from the eye of the Society.
Some had simply run into the ocean, willing and not, never to come back as their only act of defiance.
Lydia’s words had been snarky, but they’d fallen flat. It was a knee-jerk reaction to his words, a bravado so thin he could see through it.
What had they said to her?
Had it… been anything like what they’d said to him the first time, or worse?
Worse, probably, since they were probably putting her up for some Cinderella kind of slide deck at best. A mistress, a convenient party favor, a whore at that underground lounge where the darker edges of the Society met.
He could hope it was an older member, maybe? Helping manage someone’s midlife crisis? Was she going to be a trophy wife? Was she pretty enough? He hadn’t seen her face, but she had the body for it.
He shuddered at the thought of any of the old men in the Society who might have a taste for something exotic and felt nothing but sympathy. He hoped she had a way out, or at least didn’t owe the Society a large enough debt that she had no hope whatsoever.
Could he find out?
How would he find out?
Why did it matter so much to him to find out? She wouldn’t be the first person to be chewed up and spit out by the Society. For fuck’s sake, wasn’t he mid-mastication and digestion?
Didn’t he have his own problem to worry about?
“Here’s where you’ve been hiding, eh?” Dorian looked up as Animkii leaned into the room. “Come out of brooding and hang out with the cool kids. Whiskey?”