Strike Me Down - Mindy Mejia Page 0,22

and bright. I pushed myself off the railing and felt the truth rise like a reek I could no longer ignore.

“I know you can’t sleep without him.”

For a second, it was like it didn’t happen. Her face was smooth, blank, reflecting the empty dark of the night around us. Then she exploded across the balcony, so quick all I could do was jerk into the barrier and lift my arm. The snifter kept lifting. She forced the drink out of my hand and threw it across the terrace, where it crashed into the door, shattering the glass and the crystal into a thousand pieces.

“Charming.” My voice was steady, betraying nothing. “Even Aaden had more maturity.”

She took another step closer, pressing me to the edge of the balcony and I could almost smell the flour dust shimmering like gunpowder in the air, ready to ignite.

“If you ever fucking say his name to me again, I will throw you off this building. You’ll be as dead as Aaden.”

A spasm of pain crossed her face and she shoved me once, hard, before turning and pacing back across the terrace. She walked over the broken glass with bare, unflinching feet, leaving a trail of blood in her wake.

PRESSURE

NORA

AS A child Nora had been nondescript, a girl who qualified for no adjectives other than an indication of their void, but in her thirties she actually began to disappear, fading from places she’d inhabited for years. Waiters in restaurants started forgetting her drink orders. Runners she passed on the trails behind her house looked straight through her. Even jurors seemed to hear more than see her, as though she were a disembodied voice emanating from the witness stand.

Some women probably bristled as their consequence became inversely proportional to their age, but it felt like familiar ground to Nora. She already understood the fickleness of worth. Instead of trying to dress younger, or starting to color her hair, Nora embraced her obscurity. No one looked at her twice when she requested access to restricted files. She walked unnoticed through client server and records rooms. And no one held their tongues when, after prepping them with mundane chitchat, she asked the kinds of questions that carried ten- to fifteen-year prison terms. She’d had more than one gasbag accountant explain to her, in bored, clock-watching detail, exactly how they journaled their improper revenue schemes.

“You’re like a damn priest, Ellie,” Corbett marveled once. “Why do they always confess everything to you?”

“They don’t know I’m in the room.”

On Monday morning, just a few hours before the Strike investigation was set to begin, she sat in a room where she had virtually disappeared. Steam billowed in the air, condensing in droplets that fattened and connected to slide down her skin. Nora stared at the vague impressions of tile through the cloud and then closed her eyes, leaning back against the slippery wall. Maybe it was odd to sit in a room blasting steam in the dead heat of July, but it might be her last chance.

For months she’d passed through Strike’s changing area with only a quick shower as she hurried back to work, never joining the other women who soaked up the luxurious amenities. In contrast to the sparse monochrome gym, the Strike locker rooms were pure oasis: fluffy towels and locally made toiletries stacked among tropical plants; meditation rooms and massage services on demand; and a dry sauna or steam room for however you liked your heat. Nora always told herself she’d indulge next time, but she’d run out of next times.

Today the other members hurried off, rushing to start their days, leaving Nora alone in the lavish space. She inhaled the nearly liquid air, absorbing its bright eucalyptus tang, and relaxed further into the steam, trying to enjoy it and not calculate the cost of everything around her. She wasn’t on the clock yet.

A noise startled her and she opened her eyes to see steam sucking out of the room and Logan Russo striding into the void. Like Nora, she wore only a towel and paused mid-step, arching an eyebrow. “I didn’t know anyone was in here.”

Nora sat up with a jerk. “Sorry, I was just finishing.”

“You’re apologizing to me for barging in on you?”

Nora’s eyes skittered across the nebulous clouds reforming between them. “I suppose I did.”

“Take it back. Then say you don’t mind if I join you.”

She laughed nervously and flicked her fingers at the open bench. “It’s your gym.”

“No, it’s our gym. That’s why I asked.”

“You