48

We were the last ones in the office. He, the person who had given me the opportunity to take my next step in my career, was sitting in the usual place, and I was standing before him, waiting to hear whatever he had to tell me.

"This is the year to die," he said, turning his chair to face me. It was dark outside, and the lights kept flickering. I never liked it when things didn't work the way they should. Lights, computers, phones, people…Each time the light changed, it seemed to wink at me, almost as if it was laughing. And him… well, he was not laughing or smiling, but the way he looked at me made me feel something, an electricity through my body like so many months before, almost a year, when he turned my life upside down. He was speaking about death, and I couldn't dare to say anything. I just stared at him, completely still, aware that the less I said, the better it would be for me. I had to be careful if I wanted to leave that place in one piece.

He kept talking.

"I wish I could say I'm the happiest person you'll ever meet, but that would be a lie, and you'd see right through it. I'm not good at hiding how I feel. These sad eyes, crooked smile, slouched back, and awkward posture give it away before I even speak. Honestly, I don't want to hide it. Why should I? What would I get out of pretending? It wouldn't make you feel better, and I doubt it would help me. What do you think?" he asked, looking at me for a response.

"Me? Do you want my opinion? Really? I thought we had established a long time ago that it didn't matter," I replied in the coolest tone I could. Inside, I was shaking. Outside, the only things that could give me away were my fists, firmly closed, not because I wanted to fight him but because that was the only way I found to hide my trembling hands.

He shook his head slightly. "Don't say that," he replied. "It makes me sad to hear such a thing. I never said your opinion didn't matter. What I tried to explain was that changing things would be difficult, no matter how convinced you were about yourself."

"I'm not convinced of anything…"

"Not anymore?"

"Do we really need to have this conversation?"

"I didn't bring you here. You came because you wanted to."

"That's correct. I'm sorry, I'm not used to this emotional side of you."

"Oh, no, not emotional. Don't believe everything you see. I'm not trying to be dramatic about what's ahead. A lot has happened, and I need to make peace with it, so I'm telling you this to help myself move on. I never believed in our kind until I became one of us, but after living this way, it's hard not to think there might be something waiting on the other side, don't you think?"

"Our kind? Will you ever say the word?"

"I've told you a million times, we're not… that."

"That? Are you afraid of a word? You?"

"Don't do it, it's beneath you. You shouldn't be so obsessed about labels; they don't matter."

"Not to you."

"Not to anyone!" he roared as his fist hit the table, and I took a step back.

Don't retreat, don't step back, I thought, despite my whole body trembling in a mix of fear and anxiety. What was I thinking when I arrived there? I was convinced that I could finish him, and now, in a not-so-fabulous twist, he was telling me nothing made sense anymore.

He narrowed his eyes at me. "You have loud thoughts," he said. I felt his stare in my whole body like a firethrower directed at me. He was reading me again, and I was so nervous I couldn't block him out.

"Don't do that!" I yelled, and he sank into his chair and spun on it—a complete, slow turn.

"You never stop surprising me, but you're late, my dear."

I put on my angry face and defied him: "Late? What for?" but it was not his intention to give me a clear answer to that either… as usual.

"This is the age, my time, my year. Forty-eight, you know?"

I frowned, realizing I had no idea what he was referring to, but I let him continue.

"Today, I'm officially as old as my mentor was when he left me. This is how I accept what's coming. The exact number doesn't matter—you know it's not right anyway. Most people around us have no idea what it means to be chosen, to be more than ordinary. Some think we've figured it all out, they believe we've cracked some kind of code, they call it success."

I shuddered.

"And it all begins with a simple promotion."

My whole body shook, and I remembered what had happened the day I knew I would be joining the management team. I didn't like the feeling, not a bit, but he didn't care. He kept on talking like a maniac, and I kept on listening because I had nowhere to go. Nothing would change if I didn't do what I had to.

"I've been battling the idea of what this year would bring. It all started when I chose you. You've asked many times why I did such a thing, why I decided to promote you. I believe I already told you, but I don't want you to doubt yourself, what you need to do next, so here it is."

He continued, "I saw something in you that I never had. You were kind, but you still got things done. People wanted to please you. It wasn't like that for me, and I never wanted it. People worked for me because they were afraid of what would happen if they didn't—usually something bad. I never cared about that, or about them."

"Beautiful," I whispered, knowing there was something else. There was always more with him.

"But that's not exactly why I chose you either; that was just an extra. I would be lying if I said so, and I don't want to lie anymore. I knew it would piss the others off, and that's amusing. That's why. I needed to make them suffer, and you're the perfect one to accomplish that. You'll drive them crazy, you'll be more than them. I wish I could see it, but I can't have it all… or better said, I don't want to have it. Too many years in this business, I guess. Even the good stuff turns boring."

"Poor you," I said, trying to smirk at him at the same time, but it did not last long.

"This is my death."

"What?"

"Thanks for stepping up, even if you didn't realize what it meant. You came here to kill me, didn't you? That would have felt good, right? Killing your boss—what a move. But did you ever think about what would happen next? What might it do to you? What would you tell everyone else? Young people never know, but I won't blame you. Not this time."

All the trembling stopped right there, along with the accumulated nerves, fear, and frustration from the previous months. Suddenly, all those things combined inside me like a magnificent ball of fire, and I felt like a dragon about to cause chaos and destruction.

"Will you tell me your plan now? Or should I access it directly?" he said, pointing at my head.

"There's no need for that, I'm old school," I replied, and as calmly as I could, I reached for the papers in my bag.

"I feel you'll like this."

"I never feared paper cuts."

"There's always time to learn new things, even at forty-eight," I said. That was my axe to his head, a glass of holy water under a scalding sun, my way to end that nightmare for once and all.