Claimed by Alpha Price

Chapter 01

That five-centimeter fissure running along the northeast wall on the third floor of Building 2, Lot A, is going to be the death of me. One centimeter equals a hundred millimeters, the report helpfully reminds anyone still conscious enough to care. A crack is

A crack is exactly what my skull will do if I have to swallow one more line of this sludge. The letters, already printed in a font designed to punish the eyes, blur and swim. I drag in a long breath.

I can finish this. I can finish this.

A crack might travel in a neat horizontal or vertical path. It might also wander in a jagged, aimless mess. The one in Building 2 is blamed on aging. Aging is the slow process by which

My little pep talk collapses. The lids win. They drop like lead shutters.

I jerk upright, blinking hard enough to feel the strain. If screws are what it takes to keep them open, fine.

God, I’m bored.

Felix materializes at the edge of Cubicle 55. The far end of the row, a hike from his own spotCubicle 07 on the east side. I’ve watched him since my first day, not out of any romantic interest we play for the same team, but because the man treats bowties like mandatory equipment. Tuxedos, sure. Leather jackets, questionable. A sleeveless Hanes undershirtgenuinely impressive.

“Hi, Felix!” I aim for casual. Inside I’m starving for any scrap of conversation.

DeLuca Inc.’s ladder is simple enough. Every promotion buys you a wider cubicle and, eventually, a ticket to a higher floor. The seventeenth belongs to the five executives who float around in their private gym, indoor pool, fully stocked bar, and personal shiatsu therapist.

I sit in Administration. We share the fourth floor with Maintenance, right above the two-level underground parking. You can already picture the prestige.

Admin is a black hole. I’ve run errands on nearly every other floor; none of them match this murderous stillness. Elsewhere the place buzzes like a hivepeople too busy moving to sharpen their claws on one another the way the women on my floor do.

Admin?

If the company were a hospital, our floor would be the morgue and every one of us a shuffling attendant.

Felix drops a stapled packet on my desk without a word.

I push a loose strand of hair behind my earusually I keep it pulled back, but the elastic vanished this morningand thank him for bringing the Supplies Inventory Update. “Next time I can just swing by your desk”

He’s already walking away.

Most of the morgue staff treat me the same way: not worth the energy of even fake small talk. Being the unpaid intern who fetches coffee and files is part of it. The bigger crime is the extra title they stuck on meresident Grammar Nazi.

As the proofreader and copy editor I see every sloppy sentence, every half-baked thought they commit to paper. That does not win friends among the walking dead. They banished me to this corner between the swinging doors and the giant trash bins.

(the man I answer to) insists the spot is strategic. My “colleagues” supposedly want the constant traffic to remind everyone to get their documents checked before they leave. I nodded and let him keep his sunny story. Telling him the truth about the morgue would only break his heart.

I stare at Felix’s pages and get nowhere. Their quiet hostility still lands harder than it should. I didn’t choose to grow up in an orphanage whose only board game was Scrabble. Monopoly would have been nicer.

The report looks ready to explode. Another deep breath, then I wade in.

“Maya?”

I sit up fast. Felix’s back and he used my actual name. Most of them still call me Minnie. I pretend it’s an accident and not because they think I look like a mouse.

I smile up at him, fingers crossed under the desk. Please don’t ask how I’m doing. That question kills conversations faster than anything.

He answers with the smallest upward twitch of his mouth. “I need to change one thing on the update.”

Of course. Too busy for chat. Tomorrow, maybe.

I hand the papers back.

“Thanks,” he says, stiff, a second later.

I look at the revised list, curious what he fixed.

Right.

Time for another round of breathing exercises.

When I’m steady again I reach for the red pen. Felix is going to like me even less once he sees the circles, strike-throughs, and inserts waiting for him.

God, I’m bored.

Lunch at DeLuca Inc. is its own special punishment. Outcasts eat alone. I dig my lunch bag out of the bottom drawer, lock the desk, and escape Cubicle 55 before the zombies can aim their pity stares at me again. If they feel so sorry for me, why not just invite me once?

I already know the answer. They don’t feel sorry. They simply can’t stand me.

Finding a quiet corner for a peanut-butter sandwich and orange juice is never simple. The building is a tourist magnet thanks to the award-winning viewing deck on the eighteenth floor. Veganista sits up there tooa famous plant-only restaurant booked solid for months. Twenty walk-in seats open each day, and the lines for those seats regularly send me down the stairwell instead.