Page 16 of Corvus and the Broken God

“Hi, Matthew. I guess the search and rescue folks forgot to call and tell you they found me.”

He came straight to me, stepping well into my personal space, something he never did. He even touched my hair.

Eyes on my cheekbones, he said, “You’re not Freya.”

“Yeah, actually, I am.” I squeezed as much confidence as I could into those words, or possibly anger.

His eyes found my laptop case, and a hungry look came over them before he glanced away. I gripped the strap even harder. The night before, I had charged it and had discovered that while my whole life had been upended, my computer had survived my misadventures unharmed. With an ounce of luck, it would be enough to save my job.

“Come, have a seat, and tell me everything.” He shut the door behind me and motioned to the nearest chair. I sat and then regretted it, missing my new height advantage. How had I overlooked the fact that Matthew was a small man?

“Do you actually want to hear about how I survived in the woods when you left me for dead?”

He frowned, staying unusually silent.

“Or how a kind man took pity on me and finally gave me a ride to the airport? Or how I ended up looking like this?” I waved up and down my torso. He wanted the answers to my questions, frustration written all over his face, but would he have the guts to ask me?

He was saved by a knock on his door. Amanda, his secretary, stuck her head in. “Boss wants to see you.” She looked me over in a millisecond and then shut the door.

“Stay here,” was all he said before leaving the office. He didn’t wait for my answer, but it was up to me whether or not I acquiesced.

I checked my phone. It was nine thirty. I would give him ten minutes and then go find them both. I checked my email, having cleared most of it out the night before since my mind couldn’t quiet enough to sleep. Other than Mindy, no one had cared about my disappearance. I was lucky to have her as a friend. My one good friend. I’d gone through college and graduate school so driven and focused, I hadn’t made any lasting friendships, or I just wasn’t good at making friends or fitting in. Nothing new, really. I told myself it was to be expected; I had what I needed. My uncle didn’t have to raise me after my father died, but he did. My uncle did his best. He fed me, educated me, and trusted me to make my own way. I hadn’t been abused, just neglected. I never had the personality to make up for my inexperience with love. The hostile outer crust I had developed at an early age helped me cope with the fact that I wasn’t likable. Unwanted.

But now, with my future so uncertain at the one place I had fit, I couldn’t help the wave of loneliness sweeping over me.

That did it. I was done waiting for others to decide my fate. I got up and marched to Cassandra’s office. Justin, her PA, picked up the phone and held his finger up. I paused as he spoke, “Freya’s here. Okay.”

“She will see you in a moment. Have a seat.” He nodded toward the hard couch next to the door.

As much as I wanted to assert myself, it would be better to cooperate as long as possible, so I sat. “How’s life treating you, Justin?”

“Mmmm. Fine.” His eyes remained locked on his desktop as his fingers flew over the keyboard. Not that I had any kind of relationship with Justin. As Cassandra’s mouthpiece, he wasn’t popular, but this refusal to even pretend to be polite felt extra frosty.

I looked around the room, realizing nobody seemed to be around. This was odd since Cassandra’s office sat in the middle of the floor. She liked her underlings shivering with the dread of her appearance at any time, but the desks around us were empty, and the few people still occupying them were suddenly as dedicated to their work as Justin. Maybe all this place needed was my reappearance to reach new plateaus of focus and productivity.

The specter of my invisibility rose while I waited for whatever came next from my bosses.

“You can go in,” said Justin, startling me out of my misery.

Cassandra looked up as I stepped into her office, giving me a three-second head-to-toe inspection without revealing her thoughts on my miraculous reappearance. I needed to work on my poker face because hers was outstanding. She glanced at the chair next to Matthew, and I sat down without a word. Matthew looked up from his laptop and said nothing. He sat only a few inches away, but his cold expression made him feel hundreds of miles away. His cologne, once exotic and enticing, only smelled cheap.

“Well, what do you have to say for yourself?” Cassandra asked in her snootiest voice.

I glanced over at Matthew, found no help there, and cleared my throat. What was she hoping for here? For me to grovel? I had screwed up, accidentally and not without recourse, but they weren’t blameless either. Unfortunately for me, I was on shaky ground. “There may have been a software glitch. The weight of the added windows never uploaded into the new calculations, so the cantilevered supports won’t work.”

“Yes, we figured it out hours before we were supposed to be presenting. That is not what I’m asking for here. I want solutions. Do you happen to have any of those?” She eyed the laptop clenched between my hands and my lap.

“I do actually. Have some solutions. That is.” My voice faded to pathetic.

The room fell silent. I had their full attention, just no support.

“Sometime today would be nice,” said Cassandra, fingers rapping against something below the table I couldn’t see.

“Okay.” I let out a big breath and opened my laptop, pulling up the new plans I had finished on the plane. I propped it on the edge of the desk. “I’m going for a similar idea like they used in the Grand Canyon Skywalk but instead of rolling out the supports, we’d need to drill into the cliff, set the supports in pieces by crane, and then weld them together through tunnels from the top. It will be expensive but doable by my calculations.”

I watched their faces as my new suggestions clicked into place, pride in my work overriding the embarrassment of missing the problem until the last moment. Still, this solution would be elegant. It would look better than the clunky cantilevers too.

“Send that over to both of us,” said Cassandra, turning her attention back to her computer.