FROM:[email protected]
BODY:Effective immediately, Riley Lane is placed on paid administrative leave pending review. Access will be limited to essential communications. Further instruction to follow.
The words are neat little knives. Paid sounds like a kindness if you don’t know how suspension tastes on the tongue. Limited access is a trap door with a smiley face sticker.
I feel the hit low, a body check I didn’t see coming even though I absolutely did. My fingers go cold. I keep moving because the only way out is through.
“Lane?” one of the vets calls, oblivious. “You got time to look at my hip?”
“I will,” I say, and somehow my voice passes for normal. “Give me five.” I pin the email behind my ribs like a splinter and head for the training room door.
The hallway seems longer than it did yesterday. Fluorescents buzz. The framed photo of a charity skate tilts a degree to the left; I fix it with two fingers as I pass because I can still fix this. Something. Anything.
At the badge reader, I square my shoulders and swipe. Green, then red, like a heartbeat that can’t decide. The speaker emits a polite denial beep designed by someone who has never been shut out of their own life.
I try again. Slower. The reader flashes its tiny judgment and beeps that soft littleno.
Behind me, conversations falter. The sound finds quiet the way water finds low places. Sophie appears at my side so fast I don’t see where she came from. She doesn’t touch me. She doesn’t need to. She is a presence, solid as the door.
“Try mine,” she says, offering her badge. I shake my head once. This is my door to open or not.
I swipe a third time. The beep is the same. So is the red.
“Okay,” I say, out loud, to the door, to myself, to the email bleeding through my ribs. “Okay.” I take a step back, not because I’m retreating, but because I refuse to rattle a handle like a scene. If they’re going to lock me out, they can own the optics of it.
A few of the guys linger at the corner, uncertainty all over their faces. The vet with the hip problem takes a step my way, then thinks better of it and looks at Sophie like she might fix the universe. She glares him into remembering his manners.
“Riley.” Dr. Adams again, lower voice now, the kind meant for injuries and bad news. “Come into my office. We’ll…sort next steps.”
“I know the steps,” I say, not unkind. “I’m on leave pending review. I’m to await instruction.” The cadence is bureaucratic; the translation is exile. I keep my chin level. I won’t give the hallway the show.
My phone buzzes with another email.ACCESS CHANGE CONFIRMATION.I don’t open it. I already heard it beep.
Sophie shifts closer, angling herself so my body blocks the badge reader from the hallway’s direct line of sight. Privacy, even now. “You want me to start dialing counsel?”
“Yes,” I say. The word clicks into place like a splint. “And take the board. You’ve got the morning caseload. Tell the rookies if they ask me anything I will make them plank until they cry.”
“Gladly.” She squeezes the air near my arm—touch without pressure. “You did everything right.”
Maybe. Maybe not. The only thing I know for certain is that the door is still shut and the beep is still in my ears.
Down the hall, the elevator dings. The sound primes the air like static before a storm. I don’t have to turn to know it’s not a player.
Two security officers step out of the elevator in matching navy jackets and matching careful faces. They walk like they’ve practiced being soft walls—hands visible, pace unhurried, voices kept in a lower register so no one mistakes courtesy for weakness.
“Ms. Lane?” the taller one says, stopping at what HR would call a respectful distance and what my nervous system calls too close. He glances at the badge reader, then back to me. “You’ll need to come with us.”
The line is practiced. The tone isn’t unkind. That almost makes it worse. “Where?” I ask, because questions are leverage, even if it’s only enough to keep me standing upright.
“Upstairs,” he says. “HR would like to review access and next steps.” He deliversHR would likelike a weather report. There’s weather. It is happening. Bring a coat.
Sophie steps half a pace in front of me like she’s an extra inch of spine I can borrow. “Her counsel is en route,” she says. “Or on the phone. Your choice.”
“We can accommodate a phone call,” the second officer says. He’s younger; his eyes skitter to mine and away, apology in the bounce. “We’re just here to escort.”
Escort. Notremove. Notdetain. The nice words they picked out for days like this. I find my breath and square my shoulders. “Fine,” I say. “Give me one minute.”
The minute lasts three seconds.
