Chapter 11: Ember

I skipped first period for the first time in my life.

I told Lou I had a dentist appointment, and Sean gave me a long look over his coffee and said nothing.

My chief of staff met me on the corner of Water Street at ten to nine.

He was a calm man in his forties with reading glasses on a cord, and he had never once called me anything but boss.

"You're wearing a hoodie," he said.

"I'm seventeen."

"Boss, Gordon Thornquist is going to be in that room."

"I know," I said. "That's why I'm wearing the hoodie."

He sighed, took my backpack and handed me a badge.

It said Founder, in plain black type, with a photograph of me at fifteen.

The lobby of the Lantern building was glass, and the security guards stood when I came in.

I had not asked them to.

I never had.

The boardroom was on the thirty-first floor, and Gordon was already sitting at the head of the table.

He did not stand.

Two of his lawyers sat on his left, and a man from the data partner sat on his right, looking at his hands.

Gordon looked at my chief of staff first.

Then he looked at me, and for the first time since I had known him, his face did something it had not been told to do.

"Lena," he said.

"Mr. Thornquist."

"Sit down."

"It's my table," I said, and sat at the other end of it.

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