Page 108 of (Mostly) Human Resources

Michael Keane, Entity’s Hall of Heroes

Armed with her third coffee of the day, Alexys rode the elevator down to the basement. It was the lunch hour, and R&C was deserted. She felt her nerves returning as she walked the familiar hallway toward Nic’s office, his door slightly ajar. She stopped outside and took a deep breath.

Nic is fine, he’s alive, he’s sat right here in his office.

She knocked, and he welcomed her inside.

He was hunched over his computer, among the usual mess of papers, books, and folders just where she’d left him the last time she was down there. At least some things hadn’t changed.

“Hey,” she said, lingering in the doorway.

“Keane, er, Alexys.” He cleared his throat. “Please, come sit down.” Alexys set her coffee carefully on the desk and sat down across from him.

Nic looked as poorly as she felt. His eyes were a little bloodshot, and his hair was a wild frame of curls about his head. But color hadreturned to his skin, and the scrape just below his left eye was healing well.

He was looking at her with a tired half-smile. It tugged up the right corner of his mouth, but not enough to make his eyes spark the way she knew it could.

Suddenly, she felt incredibly awkward. How did you start a conversation with someone you’d shared a near-death experience with, spent multiple nights with, and had an increasing affection for? She looked down at her hands.

When had she lost her ability totalkwith the man? Their arguments and banter were second nature, and she couldn’t remember the last time they’d sat in an uncomfortable silence for longer than a few moments. Their night together at his house, and the day after, had been an exhausted blur that her mind was only just catching up with. Sitting before him now, she felt her inner defenses breaking down, a floodgate crashing open and pouring all her feelings for him out into the open. Feelings she hadn’t been prepared to feel, in full, while sitting across from him.

The only topics her scrambled brain could think of were kissing Nic—the desperation, the hunger in it, but did he even remember it?—and Nic’s bleeding body cradled in her lap, her deal with the devil, and the world’s worst promotion sending her back to her very own personal hell.

None of those things made decent lunchtime conversation.

Nic cleared his throat and asked, “So, how are you?”

“Surprisingly well.” Alexys smiled, looking up to meet his intense gaze. “I’ve been sleeping too, which is …” Her voice trailed off before she finished, “Unlike me.”

“That’s great, I’m really happy to hear it.” He frowned and glanced at his computer screen. “It feels strange to be back in the office after everything,” he added.

“It’s kind of surreal.”

He nodded, and his gaze dropped to the coffee cup clutched in his hands. He stared down at the dark liquid like it might hold the answers to all of life’s mysteries.

She wanted those eyes on her instead.

“Have you had a debriefing yet?” Alexys shook her head. “Does your department even have debriefings?”

Nic winced and shrugged sheepishly. “I didn’t expect to, but yes, I did. I hadn’t considered the consequences of inserting myself in your case without permission or formal documentation to hunt down a possibly extinct creature.”

She gaped at him. Her words sputtered past her lips as they caught on a laugh. “Did you think they just wouldn’t care? Or that they wouldn’t find out?”

When he winced again, she realized that he, in fact, had. She bit back a laugh. Nic Dyre, one of Entity’s greatest minds, hadn’t thought ahead.

Incredible.

“In my defense,” he said, “they really should be thanking me for being so helpful on that case.”

She bit her lip. “Oh, yeah. Of course. Don’t tell me they aren’t giving you a performance bonus for breaking company policy?”

Nic’s glare held no real heat, and she could see the smile fighting at the corners of his mouth.

“No, they’ve done quite the opposite. I’ve been written up and threatened with disciplinary action if I don’t behave.”

“You?Behave? I’ll believe it when I see it.”

The tension in her shoulders eased, and the familiar comfort between them settled in. It was still such a relief to see him sitting before her, clever retort at the ready and a sly grin. It nearly made it easy to forget the images of cradling Nic’s head in her lap, of Agnes stabbing him, of the life leaving him while …