Chapter 3

When a company reads as great misfortune, it has done plenty of rotten things.

And the people who work there are helping the wicked do their harm.

I knew Candice would get what was coming to her. I just didn't expect it so soon.

"Aileen, this injury is your fault!"

"If I hadn't gone to print your resume just so you could get hired at our company, I never would have been hit by that heavy load a coworker was carrying!"

Candice glared at me, her voice pure command.

"You've been fired anyway, and I've already cleared it with the President. Tomorrow you're coming to work with me!"

I looked at her right arm, completely immobilized.

"You're still going in to work with an injury like that?"

She sneered instantly, contempt all over her face.

"I'm not you!"

"If I took time off every time I got hurt, what happens when a coworker grabs my project?"

"Our company doesn't just have domestic projects, we have overseas ones too. That means company-paid travel, seeing the world, broadening your horizons!"

Overseas?

My stomach tightened.

I thought back to the reading, the killing energy gathering in the southeast.

Candice wasn't much of a person most days, but she was still my sister, so I gave her a warning one last time.

"Something really is off about your company. What company makes someone a director on day one? There's got to be a reason behind it. You'd better—"

Before I could finish, she rolled her eyes and cut me off. "I know you think you're above everyone, that it's just some startup, that it's beneath you!"

"Then you found out I got promoted, realized you'd thrown away your chance, and now you're jealous and trying to talk me out of it!"

"But I'm beautiful and kind, and now that you're joining the company, I can even take you on the overseas trips!"

Good Lord above.

I was trying to save her, and she was trying to get me killed.

I'm no saint, and since she wouldn't listen, I stopped trying.

So while she couldn't move, I tore up the resume and application form she'd printed for me, right there on the table.

"I'm just not going!"

Candice shot up from her chair, furious, and called toward Mom's bedroom.

"Mom! I told you she hasn't changed one bit!"

"Get them out here and have her hauled off to be properly reformed!"

When a group of men in black rushed out, I finally understood what she and Mom had arranged.

If I agreed to go to the company, everything would be fine.

If I refused, then I had a psychological problem, a fake-saint superiority complex, and needed to be sent to the reform school for correction.

I meant to scream for help, draw the neighbors' attention, and slip away in the chaos.

Instead I realized being taken to that school was actually great fortune.

In that instant I froze where I stood, not moving a muscle.

"If you come to your senses right now and join the company with me, I'll send these people away!"

Candice was so sure I'd be terrified.

Sure I'd panic and agree to take the job, then work myself to the bone doing all her grunt work at the company.

With a personality like hers, she'd definitely taken on a pile of tasks.

And now she was injured, in desperate need of someone to finish all of it for her.

Hearing that, I actually started rushing the men who'd come to grab me.

"Can you move a little faster? I can't wait to get to that school!"

Candice, who'd been so certain I'd fall in line, ground her back teeth to pieces.

"Aileen, you're going to regret this!"

"Someday you'll be begging me for a chance, and I won't give you a single one!"

Whether I'd regret it, I don't know.

My mother definitely regretted it.

Because the moment we reached the school gate, we ran into plainclothes police.

They quickly took the school staff into custody.

And uncovered the fact that students here were being abused.

Everyone involved, including the parents who'd dropped their kids off, had to go to the police station to give statements.

And me, well, I slipped up and let the whole thing about my mom's illegal loan spill right out...