“It took an incredible amount of balls to even conceive of that, let alone carry it out, but that’s the kind of reckless bullshit I live for.” Gideon’s grin was wide now as he continued. “The scientific method is there for a reason. Its dictates help us find out what is real, rather than what is assumed, but sometimes, those rules are hard to live by. Sometimes, you just want to fucking know and the only ethical way to do that is to use yourself as your guinea pig.”
His focus shifted to the rest of the room now, then settled on Evan.
“I’m guessing you all scurried up here to witness a ritual blood-letting, but that’s not what is going to happen today. I’d never have reached the position I’m in now if I wasn’t open to some unorthodox methodologies. Are we going to have to work hard to make sure the study is framed correctly before presenting it?”
“We…?” I asked faintly.
“Yes, we. Windsor, Candace, and you and I, we’re about to become very familiar with each other, because we will be working very hard on doing justice to the sacrifices you’ve made to ensure we better understand our omega and alpha brethren.”
I thought that the meeting was over, and I admit, I was so fucking numb, I couldn’t even feel my face, but I didn’t much care. When I turned around, seeking the eyes of my pack and finding them all zeroed in on me, I had everything I needed, and that was so damn heady, I couldn’t even process it.
That’s what we can do to people sometimes—in our attempts to do the ‘right’ thing, sometimes we divorce people so far away from who they are and what they need in life, they have moments like this. Pleasure was a dim thing, muffled by a thick layer of disbelief and unworthiness, but that was OK. I knew my pack, knew they would get through to me or die trying.
And then Gideon spoke again.
“As for Evan, this is about to get personal, something I’d much prefer to have dealt with at that level, but by bringing these pieces of ‘evidence’ before the management of my institute, you’ve unfortunately forced me to deal with this in a public forum. Concerns about colleagues are to be dealt with privately through HR. If you felt like they were not dealing with it satisfactorily, you could have brought it to me personally. Christ, seeing as you’re still living in the guest house and only eating what your mother cooks you, a conversation could’ve been had over dinner. Instead, you tried to turn this into some kind of public spectacle to repudiate Riley for the sin of being the exact opposite of you and then assumed that was a point of weakness that you could then use to your own advantage.”
I could see the real pain in Gideon’s face as he stared into Evan’s wide eyes.
“You’re done here. I didn’t want you working here in the first place. Nepotism rarely brings results, but your mother was adamant. Your ‘internship,’ for want of a better word, is over and I’m cutting you loose. You know Mum and I will always support you, but I cannot continue to support you working here.” Gideon sighed. “The log of complaints HR has against you is reason enough,” he muttered. “Collect your stuff and head home.”
It was Gideon Crowe, not Evan’s dad, who faced the rest of us now.
“Unless there’s anything else anyone wants to bring up?”
I feltlike I staggered out of the room on legs made of wet noodles, but they all rushed in to keep me upright, including Candy.
“What the fuck?!” she hissed, shooting a look over her shoulder at all the department heads filing out. “What the actual fuck?! Pub, now, because I need to shove my head in a wine glass the size of a bucket to process what bloody happened, because what the fuck?!”
“Candace, Riley.” We turned around to see Windsor standing there looking all stiff and repressed, but his mouth was turned up in a smile, just. “I just want to say…” The pause was a killer, my guts already sure we were on some kind of roller coaster because I’d been up and down all day. “Well done,” he said finally, Candy letting out a gusty sigh, but he reached out and patted my arm awkwardly. “I know now why you were so frazzled, and quite frankly, I’m astonished.” He looked from one to the other of us. “The work ethic, the trust, the team work…” He nodded sharply then. “I’ve been told it takes quite a lot to impress me, but I have to say in this case, I am very much so.”
Whatever passed for warm fuzzies in his world, they were quickly shoved to one side.
“Gideon’s asked me to mention that you are on paid leave as of now.” Robert seemed to notice my pack for the first time, nodding in their direction. “You’ve formed a pack” —his eyes slid over the bite marks poking above my collar and away again— “and you need time to consolidate that, but you’ll continue to collect data? The early results from the swabs you took are very promising. Gideon’s paying quite the sum to have them pushed through as a priority.”
I grinned then.
“Try and stop me.”
“Well, that’s good then. We’ll discuss whether or not you will need to set up a work from home scenario when you’re back on deck, but apart from that, we don’t expect to see you back here for two weeks. Now, Candace.”
My friend visibly swallowed, looking at our boss with big eyes.
“We’re going to need to—”
“I’m going home sick.”
“What?”
She coughed then, made it seem quite believable, her eyes watering as she did so.
“I’ve got a virus, probably just a twenty-four-hour thing. I only came in for Riley because…”
Windsor’s eyes narrowed at that, seeming to rake over Candy with a frankly frightening intensity, so that when he finally nodded, we both let out a sigh of relief.
“I’ll expect to see you in the morning then, fully recovered.”
That wouldn’t happen of course, because the minute we walked out of the institute, we were planning where to go next.