The floor felt slightly less stable than it had a moment ago.
Carol's eyes moved over my face, and whatever she saw there made her exhale slowly. She took a step toward me and placed her hand on my shoulder, which was so unlike Carol that it frightened me more than anything else so far.
"Kisarel." Her voice had dropped to something I had never heard from Carol before. "What did you do?"
I blinked. "Sorry?"
"To Mr. Stark." She glanced briefly across the floor, then back at me. "I have worked in this building for eight years. I know what a standard instruction from him looks like. This—" she glanced at the phone once more before lowering it, "—is not that. This is personal. So I'm asking you again — what happened?"
I didn't know how to categorize this. Carol and I were not friends. We w
