Cassie was awakened by the sound of the alarm that she had set on her phone the previous night. She tried to get up from bed only to discover that she couldn’t even feel most of the right side of her body. The little rays of sunlight that were able to penetrate through the thick, dark curtains barely illuminated the room but even still, Cassie was able to tell that she couldn’t feel the right side of her face because Aaron was lying on her arm. Slowly, she inched her way out from underneath him, pausing every time he stirred. Once she was free, she grabbed her phone, snuck out of her room and shut the door behind her.After Felix had driven her home the previous night, she had made herself and Aaron bowls of ramen as they although they had both been tired to the bone and sleepy as hell, they were even more hungry as Aaron’s last meal had been lunch and Cassie’s was breakfast. Snowflake, who had never been left alone by herself for that long, was ecstatic to see them and yipped excited
Isabel stormed out of Cassie’s house, slamming the door so violently behind her that it shook on its hinges. She didn’t bother stopping to check that the door was still in good condition or going back to the Peters’ house to get her jacket that she knew she had forgotten on one of the couches, she just kept walking. Her angry march was only brought to a halt when she got to the train station and discovered that due to how quickly she had been walking, she had arrived a couple of minutes earlier than she had intended to. She paused to catch her breath and gather herself as marching angrily was hard work.How dare Cassie?! Isabel lived her life in a constant state of barely concealed panic, constantly worrying that one day, a bunch of cops would burst through the door to her shitty apartment having discovered that she had arrived to the country illegally and boot her back to Mexico. Cassie telling Daniel about her immigration status only heightened her panic. She didn’t
When Cassie came out of the bathroom, Aaron was still asleep and Isabel was stroking Snowflake’s fur.“We’ll be back around three in the afternoon.” Cassie announced, stuffing a romper for Lily into her satchel. The clothes she had worn to the hospital were bloodied and she was currently wearing a hospital gown so a change of clothes were in order. “There are leftovers for you and Aaron. Please make sure that he at least does a little bit of his homework before he starts to watch movies.”She grabbed her satchel and headed out of the house. On a train on the way to the pediatric center, she had begun texting Amanda to find out what the doctors were saying about Lily’s condition when a call came in. It was a number she didn’t recognize but she picked up anyway.“Hey Cassie. It’s Daniel from work.” Daniel said. “I got your number from Annalisa. I hope that’s okay.”“Oh yeah.” Cassie assured. “It’s perfectly fine.” The last time someone from work had
With Cassie absent as per his instructions, Felix was once again left with the option of having Emerald work as his temporary PA. With how absolutely infuriating Emerald was, he had already begun to consider just employing a standby PA for days when Cassie was unavailable. Cassie had only been gone for a day but he had barely gotten through Monday with his sanity intact and arriving at work on Tuesday morning to a thoroughly trashed office space did nothing for his mood.Unlike Cassie, Emerald didn’t get to work on time. The fact that Emerald arrived at work late meant that he saw less of her and honestly, the less of Emerald, the better. But it also meant that he had to perform his own tasks and hers. He wasn’t so spoiled that he couldn’t get his own cup of coffee by himself or print out an email on his own but it was majorly convenient for him to have someone around to do these things on his behalf.Unlike Cassie, Emerald’s memory had more holes than Swiss cheese. Felix had lost cou
In less than a minute, the lights came back on but Cassie could tell that it was the backup lights that had come on as the elevator wasn’t even half as bright as it usually was. Before now, Cassie had been stuck in an elevator only once in her life and that elevator had been nowhere as nice as Tech Town’s as it had been marred by graffiti and stank of piss.The upside to the fact that the elevator stopped working was that she no longer had to listen to the god awful music that floated out of the speakers. But as for the downsides, there were many of those. She knew that if the elevator didn’t start working anytime soon, she would have to contend with the heat that was sure to follow. Being stuck in the elevator also meant that she and Felix would be late to their meeting, but to no fault of theirs. She would also have to stand throughout the time she was stuck in there. But the most concerning fact about being stuck in the elevator was the fact that she was stuck with Felix.Working w
“I don’t think it’s going to fit.” Cassie groaned.“It will.” Felix assured. “Just slide it in gently.”Ever since the hour they had spent in the elevator, an easy camaraderie had formed between Felix and Cassie.That Tuesday, when Felix had made a racket in his panic, someone had heard him and had alerted security. It had taken some time, but they had finally gotten the elevator to start moving again. It had begun with the lights brightening to their full capacity, then the elevator gave a slight jolt before it continued with its descent. Still, neither Cassie nor Felix had gotten up and both of them had remained on the ground, fingers entwined, even when the doors had opened again.The faces of various staff – two guys from the security department, a bunch of people from the meeting the two were supposed to be attending and other curious parties – stared at the two of them in confusion. What was the Ice King doing on the floor clutching the hand of his PA and a piece of paper as if
The moment Felix walked out of the office, Cassie knew that she had made a big mistake. When he didn’t return to the office after an hour had passed, Cassie had grown concerned for his welfare and her job. So, she had called Annalisa on the office phone to find out if she knew about Felix’s location. Annalisa had said that she didn’t know anything about Felix’s whereabouts and Cassie had to stop herself from asking for Felix’s personal number so that she could call him directly. That would have been too weird. She had resorted to walking around the building asking if anyone knew of Felix’s whereabouts. Everyone had denied knowing where he was and although she had a feeling that some of them were lying to her, she knew that she daren’t push the matter further. In the end, she had left the office without ever knowing who the mystery woman was or were Felix had disappeared to.When she had resumed work on Friday, she had found Felix slaving away in front of his laptop. She had handed him
Felix looked the worst that Cassie had ever seen him. His usually tidy hair was now matted to his forehead with sweat, and the strands that weren’t plastered down, stuck up at odd angles, making it look like he had been caught in a downpour and then struck by lightning. Multiple creases blemished his usually meticulously ironed clothes. His normally straight posture had crumpled, and he stood hunched over as if trying to make himself as small as possible. His posture was both reminiscent and not reminiscent of Luther who stood hunched over but didn’t look small in the process.Looking past him, Cassie spotted an unfamiliar car that was undoubted, judging from how expensive it looked, parked outside her house with its engine still running and the driver’s door wide open. The death grip he had on a pastel-colored book had turned his knuckles white. A bloodied bandage was wrapped around his right hand. He looked so distressed, so vulnerable, that Cassie wanted to invite him in and ask wh