Songs for this chapter:

Tessellate - Ellie Goulding

252 - Gem Club

My skin is still buzzing with heat and electricity from where Harry's fingers roamed over my body last night. It's all I can think of when I enter the lift to take me underground.

"You look happy this morning," Alexandra notes.

I imagine my face to look sleepy and content and all I can do is smile in response to her observation. The ride down in the lift doesn't even bother me today because my mind is so caught up in thinking of the way Harry's hair had brushed against my neck as we slept side by side. The way he woke me up by trailing soft kisses down my stomach, which made me crave him even more. The way he whispered to me and told me how beautiful I was in early morning light before he made his quiet exit from my room and returned to wherever it is that he comes from. 

We were both slowly but surely letting our guards down with each other. I was starting to tell that his words weren't as calculated around me as they had once been and he was beginning to lessen his fake arrogance, though he still never missed the chance to make a joke at my expense. I didn't mind it though because I was able to dish it right back. 

"Nya." Elijah's cold voice greets me as the lift door opens and annoyingly breaks me out of my thoughts of Harry. "How are you this morning?"

"Fine," I grumble. 

"You're not going to ask me how I am?" His eyes glint mischievously. 

"I figured you'd tell me on your own," I bite back, not even attempting to hide my disdain.

He raises his eyebrows in amusement. 

"You never cease to surprise me." His smile never leaves his face and his eyes are lit up, which reminds me of the wild animals I had learned about in school. Elijah appears as though he is a predator and he is very determined to hunt his prey. 

"Why are you here?" I ask, ignoring his comment. I'd gotten used to Kira meeting me every morning and taking me back to my work room. Luckily, I hadn't had to see Elijah at all last week, aside from the first day. 

"Kira is busy with something," he says with a tinge of pride in his voice.

"Busy kissing your ass," I say under my breath.

"What was that?" It's a good thing that it seems like Elijah's mind is elsewhere and he hadn't heard. 

"Nothing. I was just complaining about the cold," I lie. But it is true that I still haven't gotten used to the frigid temperature.

Elijah blindfolds me, pulls my hands behind my back, and leads me down the same hallway that I've been walking down all week. I wonder how long this will go on before I'm trusted to walk alone without all the precautional restraints. For a fleeting moment, I'm tempted to trip Elijah and run, but then I think better of it. I would have nowhere to go. Maybe this is why they're still blindfolding me. I can't be trusted down here and I'm sure Elijah knows that. He doesn't seem stupid. Crazy, maybe. But not stupid. 

He leaves me at my work room and I watch him walk across the hallway to his office before he shuts his door and I hear the faint click of a lock. I go through my same boring routine that I could do while sleeping at this point. When a yellow light goes off, I have to find the button that matches up to the light. Then from there, I wait to hear a sharp dinging noise, watch the light flash green, and then push the corresponding button. I'm not even sure what the buttons I push do. But I'm not going to ask questions. For one thing, I know my questions won't be answered and it could get me into trouble. And for another, I honestly don't even care. I just try to do my job every day and then go home. 

The hours tick slowly by and I try to preoccupy myself by thinking more about Harry and last night. He kept one of his arms around my torso while I slept and I enjoyed feeling the warmth from his body against my back. I didn't even need a blanket when I had Harry to keep me warm. When he woke me up, seeing his green eyes was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. It makes my heart ache just to think about it. 

 It feels like I've successfully made the time go by faster by thinking about him, but when I check the clock, I see that I still have three hours left before Kira usually gets me to take me back. 

There are three quick knocks on my door and Kira pokes her head in. 

"It's time to take you back." Her face is blank and she can hardly meet my eyes. 

"This early?"

She shrugs. "I'm just following orders."

Instead of waiting for Kira to pull my arms behind my back, I put them there myself. I'm really trying to have the bruises be minimal. She leads me down the hall and I finally ask the question that's been on my mind since I started working down here.

"So why am I the only one who is taken down this hallway? Wouldn't it make more sense for me to go where everyone else is? Then we wouldn't have to go through this whole mess of putting a blindfold on me every time I come and go." 

I feel Kira's grip on my wrists tighten as she tenses up. "You're perceptive," she observes.

"I've been told." I smile, thinking back on the memory of Harry telling me that I'm too perceptive for my own good. I know he wouldn't be happy if he knew I was asking questions right now. 

"I don't think you would like it if you had to use the other hallways," she says uneasily.

"They can't be worse than going through this day after day! Have you seen the bruises on my arms?" As soon as I mention it, her grip on me loosens slightly. 

"You might not think that if you had to use them." I notice that there's a melancholic tone to her voice. "The other hallways are meant for people who stay down here permanently."

"Permanently? Who would stay down here longer than necessary?" Maybe crazy people like Elijah...

"It's just one of the many perks of working down here," Kira says bitterly. "You have no choice in the matter so your family, friends, partner - at best, they all pity you. But then that fades pretty quickly. Especially when you have to spend most of your time down here. You start missing out on important things. The people who used to put you first slowly start to drift away and become closer with other people. And then, just like that, you're left with no one. So everyone stays down here because there's nobody to go home to anymore."

Her voice was steady throughout her explanation, but I can tell that it was difficult for her to talk about.

"Is that what happened to you?" I ask slowly.

When I speak, she seems to snap out of it. "That's enough questions for today."

She whips the blindfold off of my head and I see Alexandra open the lift door for me.