The Skin Thief

Chapter 31

Serena is smug for the next hour. She walks around the office, her heels clicking on the wooden floors and an arrogant grin on her face. During our afternoon break, Leo, Mia and I sit together around my desk, as usual. We hear the insufferable clicks before we see her.

Leo stops talking and pulls a face as Serena appears behind him.

"You were wrong," she says to Leo. He rolls his eyes and slowly spins the chair around to look at her.

"Oh, do explain," he replies sarcastically. Sophie laughs next to her and nudges another member of Serena's little group, Iwan. I resist the urge to huff at the sight of the pair giggling between themselves like schoolchildren. It's like being back at the academy, not at a job. Then again, our work here has the same competitive nature, so I guess silly feuds and comments are normal.

"You were wrong about the Second Realm."

Leo groans and leans back awkwardly in his chair. "You're bringing this up again?" he asks.

"Marcus said-"

"Oh, first name basis now, are we?" Mia asks. "Does he know you refer to him so informally?"

Serena blushes slightly and clears her throat. "That isn't the point. The point is that he said-"

"We've had this debate today, Serena. I'm not in the mood and, to be honest, I don't care what Kasier said. In fact, he would say that because he's in bed with all the politicians who want the war. Can you please just drop it?"

"Are you saying Mr Kasier is corrupt?" she snaps.

"I don't want to talk about this," he grumbles.

"Well, it's too late now. You can't just accuse someone like Kaiser of being corrupt and not give any sort of explanation," Iwan argues.

"I wasn't," Leo replies through gritted teeth.

"Can we just drop this?" I ask, looking between them "I'm sure Mr Kasier doesn't need you to defend him anyway."

Serena sneers at me and then turns smugly to Leo. "Well, I'll be sure to tell him what you said anyway. You can kiss any ideas of a good promotion goodbye once word gets around that you accused one of our greatest soldiers and wartime leaders of corruption."

"I'm so scared," Leo replies and stands up. "You know, your word doesn't mean as much as you think it does. You have no say or influence over which department decides to hire me."

Leo starts walking away and Serena laughs. "I will once Mr Kaiser hires me," she calls in his direction. Leo laughs and disappears into the staff room. I grit my teeth, but keep my mouth shut, not in the mood to have Serena give me some sort of egotistical lecture.

"You're a nasty bit of work, Serena," Mia sighs and stands, picking up her folders. Serena grins.

"You've got to be in a place like this. You can't get what you want by sitting at your desk and letting people walk all over you." Her eyes fall on me and I nod my head in agreement.

"True," I reply, "but you can't go around making loads of enemies either. I'm sure if future employers came around and interviewed your colleagues about what it was like to work with you and they all said you were a smug, bossy arsehole then employers would think twice about taking you on."

She rolls her eyes and crosses her arms. Her eyes meet mine and her stare is challenging. "Well, it's a good job that no one here's going to say anything like that isn't it? Not when my father can see to it that you can all lose your jobs."

Before I can reply, she smirks, turns and walks away.

"Don't even bother, Astor," Sophie says to me, "You're still new here and you don't seem to understand how it all works yet. Serena has connections. You don't. The best thing to do is suck it up, shut up, and hope you get through this placement without making too many enemies."