The Key to Fear - Kristin Cast Page 0,9

to her shame. Elodie didn’t understand. If she had that much money, she’d be long gone. Across the ocean and deeply rooted in foreign lands. Westfall would become nothing more than the place she’d come from. The place that made her unique, different from everyone else. Her stomach clenched with the lie. As much as she wanted to believe she’d be anywhere else, her place was in Westfall, with Rhett, in the MediCenter, with her plain, safe life.

Astrid pulled a thick curtain of hair across her face like a mask. “Shut up,” she teased, releasing the dark strands. “We’re working on a new Pearl prototype and need people to test it out. I’ll send one to pick you up. For free.”

“A prototype? I’ll have to figure out if I would rather die in a fiery ball or test my luck in some horrible germ attack.” The men and women laying on the bridge, X’s on their chests, flashed behind Elodie’s eyes. “You know what,” she cleared her throat. “That was stupid. Don’t listen to me. I’ll take your free ride.”

Astrid plucked the air with a delicate wave. “Later, later.”

The image filling the side of Elodie’s vision went gray and disappeared as she ended the call and stared up at Westfall’s downtown MediCenter building. Bronze sconces framed the smooth concrete facade, their tines stretching toward the sky like points on a crown.

Elodie’s clear plastic cuff flashed green as she approached the spotless glass doors. They opened noiselessly, their shiny gold handles glinting in the dappled sunlight. How long had it been since anyone had actually touched them? The handles on all of the entrances in the remaining buildings in Zone One were now nothing more than metal jewelry for doors.

The scent of fresh pine, of the forest after a rainstorm, swirled through the air.

“Is this one of those experiments where someone stands in the middle of the walkway to see whether or not people are gullible enough to start a line behind them?”

Heat flooded Elodie’s cheeks and she flicked her gaze to the pavement behind her and the owner of the deep, silky voice and source of the piney scent. How had she missed those giant boots clomping up behind her? The boots moved, leaving a dusting of dirt across the red brick. Elodie grimaced. Who even knew where to find that much dirt?

“You are going in, right?” The owner of the boots spoke again.

Elodie jerked forward and absentmindedly shook her head at the dingy, mud-splattered yellow laces. “No. I mean yes.” She forced her attention to the ground beneath the nearly silent shuffling of her brilliantly white sneakers. Maybe she did get lost in her thoughts way too often. “Yes, I—” The glass door clanged surprisingly loud when Elodie smacked into it.

The heavy boots clomped up behind her, bringing with them more of the crisp evergreen scent. “Oh, shit. Are you okay?”

Elodie’s vision danced as she waited for the doors to reopen before attempting to walk through them again. “Yeah.” She rubbed the side of her head and stayed facing forward, refusing to look at whoever had just witnessed what had to be the most embarrassing moment of her life. The doors opened and Elodie concentrated on proceeding as calmly and incident-free as possible to the bay of elevators. “Eleven,” she squeaked after scanning her cuff beneath the elevator’s control panel.

The heavy, crunchy footsteps continued to shadow her. Elodie pressed her eyelids shut and held her cool palm against her flaming cheek as she waited to see which elevator would descend first.

Another beep of the control panel. “Twelve,” the boots’ owner said with a muffled groan.

Or maybe Elodie was the one groaning.

Her eyelids fluttered open and she cast a sideways glance at the dirty brown boots waiting by her side. There was no way she could board an elevator and ride all the way to the eleventh floor with that forest scent, with someone who had just watched her walk into a door. Not with the morning she’d been having. She smoothed her wet hair over the tender knot forming on the side of her head.

An elevator chimed its arrival, and Elodie darted away from the opening doors and the heavy boots.

Today seemed like a really good day to take the stairs.

“And the key to our future. The key to our future. The key to our future.” Blair bit down on her nail, silently scolded herself, and then clasped her hands in front of her as she hurried down the