Page 3 of Black Heart
My fingers fly across the keyboard, racing against exhaustion to de-bug this code before going home. The office is eerily quiet, most employees having gone home hours ago. Only the low hum of sleeping computers and the click-clack of my typing break the silence.
Until heavy footsteps echo down the corridor, sending a spike of dread through my weary body. I know those languid footfalls all too well.
Dawson slinks into my cubicle, reeking of stale cigarette smoke and cheap cologne.
“Burning the midnight oil again, Layla?”
Dawson’s voice drips like poisoned honey behind me.
Before I can respond, his hands grasp my shoulders, thumbs pressing into the knots of tension.
I flinch, skin crawling at his unwanted touch. Bile rises in my throat, but I force it down.Endure, I remind myself.You need this internship.
His hands linger a moment too long before finally falling away.
“I admire your dedication, Lay. You’ll go far in this company.”
His implications slither down my throat like the midnight oil he’s so fond of. I want nothing more than to flee his presence, but I’m stuck in place. All my life, I’ve fought against men like him, yet here I am, allowing him to paw at me like an object.
No. I refuse to be cowed. I shrug out of his grip and meet his beady eyes. “I should get back to work, sir. I have an early morning.”
Dawson’s smile turns icy. He knows I’ve rebuffed him. “Don’t stay too late. They’re shutting off the heat soon for some work on the system and testing the air conditioning. Place’ll be freezing.”
He skulks away, but his stench lingers like a disease.
I let out a shaky breath, skin still crawling from his unwanted touch. This would be the tenth time he’s invaded my space after hours, and I’ve worked here for five months. But I can’t dwell on it. My future’s too important.
Raised by a single mother after my father abandoned us, I’ve had to learn to be self-sufficient and independent—especially when the boyfriends came along. The power of invisibility is something I gave up a long time ago. With my eyes the color that they are, I’m an immediate curiosity to anyone I inadvertently make eye contact with.
Doll Eyes. Ghost Girl. Vampire. Witch. Temptress. Whore.
The cruelest moniker of all, spat at me by one of Mom’s more articulate Lotharios. As if the color of my irises alone could bewitch a grown man, absolving him of any accountability for his own wretched behavior.
The screen blurs as hot tears sting the corners of my eyes. I blink them back, refusing to let Dawson or the memories of my fractured childhood distract me any longer. I owe it to myself and to the memory of the broken woman who raised me to rise above the role of victim.
Mum’s Men, as I’ve termed the assholes who came in various forms but with the same type of brain, came up with these nicknames throughout my life until I found my escape hatch out of that house at eighteen.
My mother may have chosen the fleeting affection of despicable men over the well-being of her own daughter. She may have looked the other way while her boyfriends lewdly objectified a child. But her mistakes, her weakness, do not have to define me.
I draw in a deep breath, imagining I can expel the rancid odor of Dawson’s cologne on the exhale. Conjuring an image of wide-open skies and sprawling hills, I let the dream of freedom that saved me as a child flow through my veins, steadying my hands.
The office air conditioner kicks on with a wheeze, blasting frigid air into my cubicle. Goose bumps rise on my arms. I’ve been so involved in my work, I didn’t realize the heat must’ve shut off some time ago. I pull my jacket tighter around me and continue typing.
As the progress bar inches toward completion, my mind wanders to the box of Mom’s belongings sitting in my closet. I haven’t opened it yet. Part of me wants to throw it away, to sever that last connection to a past I’ve tried so hard to escape. But something holds me back.
The clock on my desk reads 1:37 a.m. when I finallyfinish debugging the code. I save the file and email it to Dawson, cc’ing the project lead. I envision going home and curling up in front of a warm fire in the new, slightly ramshackle home I inherited after my mother was in the wrong place at the wrong time and was killed for it.
How did Mom get caught in a shoot-out at a bar? My questions only multiplied when her ex, an attorney, read me her will and her long-kept secret that she—we—owned a decrepit lighthouse in a remote coastal town, left by a father I never knew.
My mother dated men with all kinds of occupations, from deadbeats to lawyers, but a lighthouse keeper wasn’t one I ever would have predicted.
Or that he’d be my father.
He’s dead, too. He was killed in a drunk driving accident on one of the many narrow, cliffside roads in Greycliff twelve years ago.
Maybe you think I’m cold for talking about my parents this way. But for so long, I was the only parent I knew. I supervised myself more than these two ever could, and while I’m sad that I’mactuallyan orphan now, I’ve kind of always felt that way.
Which is why the foggy coastal town of Greycliff was perfect for me and the resulting internship at one of the latest start-up tech firms in the industry. My skills and the atmosphere were a perfect match.