Page 64 of Never Bound

“No.”

“Why the fuck not?” He didn’t seem angry, just exasperated. “I know you’re not supposed to have one, but I can tell you right now—as I tell everyone else who works for me—that here, you’ll be doing a lot of things you’re not supposed to be doing. Because that’s the only way to win at the game I play. So give me a good reason.”

“Because it wouldn’t be my real name, legally,” I said stubbornly. “And I don’t want any name they can take away from me.”

Langer groaned. “I’m going to wear you down on this, you know.”

“Well, I’m going to have fun watching you try.”

Langer actually laughed a little at that, which surprised me. The elevator dinged gently upon its arrival. Langer made to step on but paused on the threshold, holding the doors open. He looked back. “Ah, shit. I forgot one other thing. Your office.”

“What about it?”

“I didn’t have time to get it cleaned out. Corey’s parents had the balls to call me up and demand I hand over everything in there, but I told them it’s all proprietary. Naturally, they threatened to sue me, so I figured I’d leave it untouched, just in case.” He recognized the look in my eye and shook his head. “Trust me, there isn’t anything proprietary in there. I’d known for months that their idiot son couldn’t be trusted with anything more than paper pushing. But my concern for the Killeens ended the second I finished signing their seven-figure check, which you’d think would be more than enough to get them to fuck off and leave me alone. Anyway, I’ll tell the assistants to get on it, but—”

“Don’t bother. I’ll do it,” I said quickly, not entirely sure why. Just a hunch.

He raised his eyebrows. “You sure?”

“Yeah, it’s no problem.” Let him think I was being helpful. “I’m used to cleaning, after all.”

Langer forced his way onto the elevator and smirked as the glass doors closed. “Knock yourself out, kid.”

19

HIM

BackinCorey’s—my—mustyoffice,I drew the shade and opened the window to let some light and air in. Blinking at the harsh sunlight, I closed the shade again partway. All the offices had a high-tech opaque screen that could be drawn over the glass paneling for privacy, but I couldn’t think of a better way to broadcast “I’m up to no good” to the entire building, so I left it alone.

I turned to the desk with a strange anticipation. Langer had said there was nothing proprietary in there, and I had no reason to doubt that. Honestly, I didn’t know what I expected to find by volunteering to do a menial chore, other than flashbacks to how I’d spent most of my life up to this point and the dubious opportunity to learn way more than I ever wanted to know about Corey.

A few minutes later, most of what I’d learned was that the dude was disgusting. The desk boasted a bobblehead of his college mascot and a couple of other pieces of tacky swag, plus a pair of douchey wraparound sunglasses and spare change, all mired in layers of sticky residue from whatever he’d been drinking—likely the bottle of cheap whiskey stuffed in one of the drawers—topped off with a pack of novelty playing cards with naked women on them, a gift from one of his classier friends, no doubt. Balled-up clothes that looked like he’d worn them to the gym. And cigarette butts because apparently, he’d been too lazy to even go to the window to surreptitiously smoke, let alone all the way downstairs. In the drawers and in a couple of cardboard boxes, I found untidy stacks of old gas station receipts, sales catalogs, and business cards. Obviously, the digital transformation didn’t seem to have made it here. What kind of so-called engineer doesn’t have a filing system, electronic or otherwise?

I quickly rummaged through the remaining drawers and shelves, scanning every page, front and back, to see if it was of interest before throwing entire stacks of paper and knick-knacks into a large garbage bag with the kind of vengeful satisfaction I’d never expected to get from cleaning. I supposed that would have to satisfy me.

And then, at the very bottom of the drawer, covered in papers from over a year ago, as if to make it look less conspicuous, was a tablet. I pressed the button, but it obviously needed a charge. Stuck on the other side, a sticky note read:

Hey, Cor, hope you enjoyed the lab tour! ?? These codes should help you next time. Feel free to bring some friends. I owe you one. - R.

She’d written two four-digit numbers on the back.

And underthat, in what I now recognized as Corey’s handwriting, was a list of passwords.

HER

I had been surprised but not overly concerned when Erica had abruptly sent out a mass email canceling her office hours that day, or even when she hadn’t replied to the email I’d sent her from the throwaway account I’d made in the university computer lab, asking her when and where we could meet. Or even when one of Milagros’ fellow volunteer guides at the mirror telescope told me Milagros hadn’t been in for a couple of days. And yet as I hung around the library trying to study, and more hours passed without a reply, the more uneasy—and guilty—I felt that it had taken me so long to get in touch with them, especially after the urgency of Erica’s message asking me to call back re: Maeve. Then again, two days of wallowing in abject depression didn’t seem like too much to ask afterthat, and I thought even the professor, for all her single-minded devotion to the cause, might have at least alittlesympathy for me. Not to mention, I no longer had a computerora phone. But as I approached that now-familiar little adobe house near the university, that feeling I’d had on the walk over—dodging what I knew intellectually were probablynotsuspicious looks from passersby—had only grown.

As before, the windowsills were lined with potted succulents, and vines cascaded down from a trellis on the wall. But that wrought-iron iguana, which before had seemed friendly and almost welcoming, now seemed to wear an unseemly grin that made me want to kick it over. I paused, my hand hovering above the brass doorknob, listening for any sign of movement inside. When no noise came, I took a deep breath, turned the knob, and stepped inside.

Not even the echoing of my footsteps on the tile could break the silence that blanketed the lush living room. I could almost hear the plants breathing. Millie the cat meowed a greeting from the kitchen, but for now, came no closer. Her food and water bowls, just inside the kitchen door, were empty. Should I take a look around or wait until someone came back? I wondered.

No.Neither. Because I didn’t want to see it. I didn’t want to see the plants; didn’t want to see the cat; didn’t want to see the hammock or, God, thepool. I didn’t want to see them for the same reason I didn’t want to wake up in my own goddamn bed every morning.

Look, I knewIwas the lucky one, not him. But one thing was for sure: wherever he was, at least his memories were only in his head.

Back at home, the lid on the thick white eggshell paint in the storage room had popped off, its contents gushed to all corners, as ifsomeonehad rattled the bottom shelf as hard as they could to get it to fall. It was going to be a bitch for the maid to clean up, and since I had about fifteen minutes to spare before I risked being late, I did the right thing and helped her with it. The wooden stir stick that had been used to write lay mired in the thick paint, next to the words:

When You Are Old.

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