Page 5 of Kenna's Dragon

“To your office?” Ruthie asks, confused.

“Yes,” I tell her, fully aware of how odd the request is. As Director, I’m not in the habit of personally greeting our new hires.

“Of course. I’ll reach out to Yvette and have Kenna come right up.”

A whispered thread of sanity in the back of my mind warns caution, and if I were a better man, I would listen to it.

But I’m not wholly a man, not right now.

With a decisive silencing of that whisper, I retreat into my office and wait to see what kind of enormous mistake I’m about to make.

3

Kenna

“Hey, Kenna?” Yvette’s voice startles me out of the anxiety spiral I’m having at my desk.

“Yeah? What’s up?” I ask, even though I’m pretty sure I already know.

“I just got a call from Director Blair’s assistant. She let me know he’d like to see you upstairs in his office.”

There it is.

Stomach sinking, I nod and stand from my desk. “Did she say what he wants to talk to me about?”

Yvette shakes her head, and for the first time today, all the sunniness in her face is gone. “She didn’t. I’m sure everything’s fine, though.”

I’m not convinced. Not after what happened downstairs before the meeting.

Even now, I can still feel the weight of Blair’s golden gaze on me, the intensity of being the focus of such sharp scrutiny.

Something Nora once told me about him sticks out in my mind, though I can’t remember exactly how she phrased it. Something about Blair being preceptive—beyond the normal, human concept of the word. Some instinct that lets him get an immediate beat on people.

Maybe he got one on me, and maybe he didn’t like what he saw.

Impostor syndrome sitting heavily on my shoulders with each step I take, I follow Yvette to the elevator. She’s quiet, but then again, what can she really say right now? By the strange tension in the air and the odd glances I get from my new coworkers as we leave, it’s not hard to guess being called to the Director’s office on your first day is not a normal occurrence.

They all saw Blair looking at me. Vera was the only one to ask about it outright after we all got back to our cubicles, but let the topic drop when I told her I had no idea what it was about.

Although, I suppose I’m about to find out.

Yvette and I reach the top floor and walk up to a desk outside an office door with Blair’s name and title printed on it. The forest sprite sitting behind the desk looks up, immediately locks eyes with me, and studies me for a moment before some sort of understanding spreads across her face.

What she thinks she understands, I don’t know, and Yvette apparently doesn’t either as she shifts uncomfortably next to me.

“Hi, Ruthie,” she says. “Mr. Blair wanted to see us?”

“Just Kenna,” Ruthie says brightly. “And he’ll be right out if you want to take a seat.”

Yvette frowns, but covers it up quickly as she turns to face me. “Alright. Well, I’ll be downstairs in my office if you need to drop by after you’re finished.”

Yeah, if I’m not fired and frog-marched out of here.

I don’t say that though, and as Yvette heads back to the elevator, it’s just me and Ruthie sitting in silence outside Blair’s office.

“Today’s your first day at the Bureau?” she asks.

“Yeah, it is.” And maybe my last.

---