The Key to Fear - Kristin Cast Page 0,53
furnishings, complete with black velvet chairs and a sleek silver chandelier that hung over the center of the room like the blade of a guillotine. One of her former assistants had compared her decor to a fortress—Blair had overheard him talking about it after she’d let him go. He’d stomped around melodramatically, braying about the peaks and points of the black and gray furniture Blair surrounded herself with as a metaphor for her fortress-like personality. But another word for fortress was stronghold, and Blair was most definitely strong. She’d taken it as a compliment.
The door hissed open. Blair yanked her nub of a fingernail from her mouth and flattened her hands against her lap as Maxine’s kitten heels tap-tapped against the sleek tile and quieted when she stepped onto the plush throw rug. “I got your message,” her assistant said, “Did you want to stream the mission live or would you like to start from the beginning?” Maxine blinked expectantly at Blair, her brown eyes glistening in the sharp overhead lighting. Unlike Cath, who seemed to soften in the shadows, Blair bristled with the mere thought of being in the dark. She needed her space to be so brightly lit that it was practically on fire.
“The beginning.” Blair folded her hands across the smooth top of her uncluttered onyx desk, and expertly kicked off her shoes without moving the top half of her body. “I want to see everything as they saw it. It’s ridiculous that you even have to ask me. I should have been here, ready and waiting to stream it live, not in a mind-numbing meeting.”
The tip of Maxine’s pink nose wiggled with a sniff as her fingers fluttered over her holopad. “I agree.”
The Key’s red logo seemed to envelop the wall as it unfurled across the expansive holoscreen that hovered opposite Blair’s desk.
“Can you believe they had me travel all the way across the river on the MAX for that Eastside marketing meeting,” Blair said, “like I’m some kind of cube worker whose thoughts are so small that it takes dozens just like me to come up with one idea good enough to use?” Blair still wasn’t sure what had offended her more. The fact that someone with a higher title within the corporation considered her just another face in the crowd of zombie cubicle workers, or the fact that the Key hadn’t provided her with a complimentary Pearl ride.
“Someone has to lead the regular people.” Maxine sucked in a breath, her lips tightening into an O.
“Tell me.” Blair nodded encouragingly, already able to read Maxine. The independent, decisive, and competent assistant was a lovely change of pace. It wasn’t until Maxine that Blair had realized how much time she spent fighting or calculating her next battle strategy with her previous assistants. She was never truly at ease, and she never would be as long as her relationship with Maxine was tethered to the MediCenter, but Blair appreciated the possibility that they could maybe one day be friends. For now, there was only one person on the planet who could get Blair to release her guard completely. But she’d been so busy clawing her way up the MediCenter ladder that she hadn’t spent quality time with her brother in months and, until Denny fixed his comlink, they also wouldn’t be chatting anytime soon.
Maxine settled into the black chair opposite Blair. “Well, you didn’t hear it from me, but the marketing pod has been totally uninspired lately. To the point that there have been talks of reassignment within the department.” Her arched brows shot toward her hairline. “All the way up the chain.”
A soldier clad in Key Corp tactical gear stood frozen in the still image that appeared on the screen behind Maxine. Tree trunks wider than the man himself shot up from the ground on all sides.
Blair crossed and uncrossed her legs. She was already late to the videocast …
“And have you heard who’s in the running for the head position?” Maxine continued, excitement driving her delicate eyebrows toward the deep widow’s peak of her short blond hair.
Head of marketing wasn’t the title Blair had her eye on. But a title was a title. Besides, all of her titles thus far had been like ill-fitting pants, kept on long enough to prove they weren’t right, and cast off for a better fit.
Blair silently set her jaw and reclasped her hands while her toes tapped under her desk.
“Well, I’ve heard who it’s not.” Maxine tucked her holopad