Alpha's Favourite Girl

a she was not going to drink, and Jules Okafor lying up

m saying it's the single most unhinged thing you've ever described to me, and

dicted him

side up, hair static-wild. "Alexander Thorne came int

di

Friday. And you're going to his office

ate. Establ

r negotiating with

e walk home from Saturday's shift, and decided that some pieces of this she wanted to carry alone until she understood their weight. She had also not told her a

ly. She di

, and picked up the

ad each line aloud in the voice of a barrister with a grudge. By six o'clock it ran to a page

GRE

Rose ("ER") and Al

hirty days f

t the end, if AT has kept this Agreement,

day, truthfully. He may decline. He may

y voice, tone or any other means, a

ool. Her mother is not to be contacted

, known to ER by name, may keep a dis

y may end this Agreeme

'By voice, tone or any other

more whatev

t wa

d I'd like it on the record that

he one person in the world who could tell, from the an

e," she said.

es

ar. "Safety plan. You text me when you arrive, when you're leaving and when you're on the bus. If I don't hear from y

worst-case

Jules. "The worst one invol

-

ekend, in the way a kettle

a banknote far larger than a loaf of rye could possibly justify. She had held it

ana said. "He did

d he loo

ir

. It was still there on Monday morning. Eliana saw her mother looking at it as she packed

h," Nora said, hand

wil

di

out of the neck. It smelled of strong dark earth, and under it of something faintly sweet, a note she'd never had a name for and had

ught. She wasn't ready

d it down

a scientist in about equal parts. Then she washed th

-

n her feet. By the time she stepped off at Fennimore Street

e grey afternoon like a blade stuck in the city, sixty-one floors

s Ro

ark suit, and he had a face designed to be forgotten in lifts. She knew him at once,

"I work for Mr. Thorne

e who didn't t

ause. "I

twenty minutes with the Gazette

might have been respect. "Page eleven," Dane s

t liked h

y under her feet and tried not to look down. She had texted Jules arrived from the lobby. She texted g

s, like a fridge in another room. She frowned, and shook her head,

rtb

, living thing. She could hear them through the walls and the floors and the glass, and under them, deeper still, a long, low ton

e glanced at her, and the

voice at the back of her mind, is go

ne said, gently

-

of it, with the door open and his hands behind his back, in the posture of

ed on the

n carved out of a single enormous tree. There was no art that she could see, and no photographs, and nothing a

ame,"

id I

ay a lot

rpet, took the folded page from her blazer pocket,

up. She wat

hread in a sweater. His eyebrows went up at clause two. They went up higher at clause four. At cl

thorough," A

ad h

e agreement, you'll give me

rre

id to give

e folded her hands. "I'm not being clever. I'm being careful. If you tell me the truth for thirty days, I'l

ho

ink of s

e else," Alexan

ose you'd be

In the doorway, Dane had suddenly

said Alexander.

declined questio

r for reasons of safet

that's the reaso

in

d at her, and for a moment something

n't always something I decide. There are times it j

en

ll

not the

you've just written me a contract that requires me to be hones

otiations with billionaires usually went. She suspected most of them

he said. "Delibera

member of my staff, k

an

and for the first time since she'd met him he looked sta

not twilight, not 'within the h

done thi

to my

and he held it as if it were a treaty instrument. He signed the bottom of the page without sitting

days,"

. It was warm

me, and as she did she felt, absurdly, as i

-

on," sh

hat's the a

out this on the bus, in the lift and in the toilets at

. She knew it from the

till, with his hand on the back of his chair, and he looked her

cline that one,

at gro

aused. "It's a question I can't answer yet. Not because it's dangerous. Because I don't want to g

at him for

ster from smooth to furious. This looked like something else. It looked like a man declining to s

ries over," she said. "I

es

ll owed

hed. "Yes. I su

u do to me i

r. "With my voice. It's something certain people in m

he also could hear what was missing from i

t quite wh

hat you

't work." She tilted her head. "That's a narrower question than the one you've an

e, in which Dane

ood at this,"

ad a lot of practice

e said. "Ask

eet of paper, folded in half, and slid it acro

e watched his eyes

ne, pulled from the bakery doorbell camera, cross-referenced against the school calendar. At the bottom, in red ink, sh

ng in his face had shifted, not softened exactly, b

this on S

es

dn't te

contract on Satur

t a laugh, and passed the page

un every

op line. His eyebrows

aid Alexander. "I'm beginning

t at te

l you everything), and watched the three dots appear and disappear and appear again, and put the

s closed. The

at the edge of hearing, like the sea. But now the lift was falling and the building slid past her in a long slow roar

below the lobby, below the street, beneath the foundations of the buildin

ew warm in

hing spoken in a dream, a word. A voice. Old and dry and i

le

the silence of the marble floor rolled ove

her hand shut around a ring that had begun to hum, and underst

opened