Lillian showed up to work the next morning with bandaged palms and a story she couldn't tell anyone.
The official version was that she'd gotten stuck in an elevator during a power outage. The unofficial version—the one where she'd somehow caused the entire building's electrical system to go haywire with a single touch—was the kind of thing that got you committed to a mental hospital.
She pushed through the glass doors of the thirty-eighth floor, trying to ignore the way her hands still tingled whenever she thought about what had happened. The wrist mark had faded overnight, but she could swear she still felt it there. Like a phantom itch she couldn't scratch.
"You must be Lillian." A woman with perfectly blown-out blonde hair and a smile that didn't reach her eyes approached her. "I'm Jessica, HR coordinator. We need to get you set up."
Jessica's heels clicked against the polished concrete floors as she led Lillian through the open-plan office. Everything was glass and steel and intimidating efficiency. People in expensive suits moved between workstations like chess pieces, each one looking like they belonged in a magazine about successful people.
"Coffee station's over there," Jessica pointed with a manicured finger. "But fair warning—it's terrible."
Lillian almost smiled. At least she'd been right about something yesterday.
"Your workstation is here." Jessica stopped at a desk that looked exactly like every other desk. "You'll be working under Marcus Stone, senior analyst. He'll explain your first assignment."
A man approached them, looking like he'd stepped out of a British period drama. Blonde hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and a suit that probably cost more than Lillian's car. If she had a car.
"Marcus Stone." He extended a hand. "Welcome to the shark tank."
"Is it really that bad?" Lillian asked.
"Worse." But he smiled when he said it. "Don't worry. You'll either love it or quit within a week. Most people quit."
Jessica's phone buzzed. She glanced at it and her expression shifted. "Actually, there's been a change. Mr. Valderon wants to see you in his office."
Marcus raised an eyebrow. "On her first day?"
"Apparently." Jessica's tone suggested this was as unusual as a unicorn sighting.
Lillian's stomach clenched. She'd hoped to avoid Adrian for at least a few days. Maybe forever, if she was being honest.
"Is that... normal?" she asked.
"Mr. Valderon doesn't usually take interest in individual interns," Marcus said carefully. "Ever."
Great. Just great.
The elevator ride to the fortieth floor felt like déjà vu in the worst possible way. But this time, the elevator worked perfectly. No mysterious power surges. No glowing marks. Just a normal ride that gave her too much time to think about how thoroughly she'd probably screwed up her career before it even started.
Adrian's assistant, a sharp-faced woman who looked like she could cut glass with her stare, pointed her toward a set of double doors.
"He's waiting."
Lillian knocked.
"Come in."
Adrian's office was the size of her entire apartment. Floor-to-ceiling windows offered a view of Manhattan that probably cost more per square foot than most people's mortgages. The man himself sat behind a desk that looked like it had been carved from a single piece of black stone.
He was wearing a different suit than yesterday, but he still looked like he'd stepped off a magazine cover. His dark hair was perfectly styled, and those midnight-blue eyes fixed on her with the same unsettling intensity.
"Sit," he said without looking up from whatever he was reading.
Lillian sat in one of the leather chairs facing his desk. It was probably nicer than any piece of furniture she'd ever owned.
"How are your hands?" he asked.
She glanced down at her bandaged palms. "Fine."
"Good." He set down his papers and finally looked at her. "I have an assignment for you."
"Okay." She waited for him to continue.
"Hartwell Industries. Small tech company, claims they've developed a revolutionary new battery technology. They want us to invest fifty million dollars." He slid a thick folder across the desk. "I want you to tell me if they're lying."
Lillian stared at the folder. "I'm sorry, what?"
"You have until end of business today. Full analysis. Recommendation."
"I... I'm an intern. I've been here for exactly twenty minutes."
"Are you saying you can't do it?"
The way he asked the question made it sound like a challenge. Like he expected her to fail.
"I didn't say that."
"Then do it."
Lillian picked up the folder. It was heavy. Really heavy. "This is usually the kind of thing that takes teams of analysts weeks to complete."
"Usually." Adrian leaned back in his chair. "But you're not usual, are you, Lillian?"
The way he said her name made her skin prickle. Like he knew something about her that she didn't know about herself.
"What makes you think that?"
"Call it a hunch."
She stood up, clutching the folder. "Where should I work on this?"
"Marcus will set you up with a conference room. Everything you need should be in there."
At the door, she turned back. "Why are you doing this?"
"Doing what?"
"Testing me. That's what this is, isn't it? Some kind of impossible task to see how I handle failure?"
Adrian's expression didn't change. "What makes you think it's impossible?"
"Fifty million dollar investment decisions aren't made by interns on their first day."
"No," he agreed. "They're not."
"So?"
"So prove me wrong."
The conference room Marcus led her to had a view of the East River and enough space for a small army. The Hartwell Industries files covered an entire wall when she spread them out—financial statements, technical specifications, patent applications, and enough legal documents to build a small fort.
"This is insane," she muttered to herself.
"Talking to yourself already?" Marcus appeared in the doorway with a cup of coffee. "That's usually a week three development."
"He wants me to analyze a fifty million dollar investment in eight hours."
"Sounds about right." Marcus set the coffee down next to her. "Adrian doesn't believe in easing people into things."
"Has anyone ever actually completed one of his first-day tests?"
Marcus was quiet for a moment. "You're the first intern he's given one to."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means," Marcus said carefully, "that something about you has caught his attention. And that's either very good or very bad."
"Which do you think it is?"
"Ask me tomorrow. If you're still here."
After Marcus left, Lillian stared at the mountain of paperwork. Eight hours to do what should take weeks. It was impossible.
Unless...
She picked up the first financial statement and started reading. But instead of trying to process every number and detail, she let her mind relax. The same way she used to when she was taking tests in college, when the answer would just... come to her.
The numbers started to tell a story.
Hartwell Industries had been hemorrhaging money for two years. Their so-called revolutionary battery technology was based on research that had been debunked three years ago by MIT. The patents they claimed to own actually belonged to a subsidiary company that had been dissolved six months earlier.
But here was the interesting part—someone had been very careful to hide all of this. The fake patents were buried in shell companies. The research discrediting their technology was only available in obscure academic journals. The financial losses were spread across multiple quarterly reports and disguised as "development costs."
It would have taken a team of investigators months to uncover this.
Lillian had figured it out in three hours.
She sat back in her chair, staring at her notes. This was wrong. She was good at analysis, sure, but she wasn't this good. No one was this good.
Her wrist started to tingle.
She looked down and saw the faint red mark beginning to reappear, like invisible ink under heat.
"No," she whispered. "Not again."
But even as she said it, she knew. Somehow, whatever had happened in the elevator was connected to this. To her ability to see patterns and connections that shouldn't be visible.
A knock on the conference room door made her jump.
"Come in."
Adrian stepped into the room, and his eyes immediately went to the papers spread across the table. Then to her wrist, where the mark was getting brighter.
"Find anything interesting?" he asked.
"They're lying." The words came out more confidently than she felt. "About everything. The technology, the patents, the financials. It's all fake."
"Prove it."
Lillian walked him through her analysis, pointing out the connections she'd found, the inconsistencies in the paperwork, the pattern of deception that had been carefully constructed over years.
Adrian listened without interrupting. When she finished, he was quiet for a long moment.
"How long did this take you?"
"Three hours."
"Three hours." He picked up one of her charts, studying it. "To uncover a fraud that our forensic accountants missed in their initial review."
"Your forensic accountants looked at this?"
"Two weeks ago. They recommended the investment."
Lillian felt cold. "So either they're incompetent, or..."
"Or you're something special." Adrian set down the chart and looked at her directly. "The question is, what kind of special are you, Lillian Blackwood?"
Before she could answer, her wrist began to burn. Not just tingle—actually burn, like someone was pressing a hot iron against her skin.
She looked down and gasped.
The red mark wasn't just glowing anymore. It was moving. Shifting and changing shape like a living thing.
"What's happening to me?" she whispered.
Adrian's expression was unreadable. "You're waking up."
"Waking up from what?"
"From being normal."
The mark on her wrist pulsed once, bright as a camera flash, and then faded completely.
Adrian checked his watch. "It's five-thirty. End of business day."
"That's it? That's all you're going to say?"
"You passed the test, Lillian. Congratulations."
"What test? What is this really about?"
Adrian moved toward the door, then stopped. "Same time tomorrow. I have another assignment for you."
"Wait—"
But he was already gone, leaving her alone with a conference room full of evidence and more questions than answers.
Lillian looked down at her wrist. The mark was completely gone, but she could still feel it there. Like a secret written in invisible ink.
Tomorrow, she decided, she was going to get some real answers.
Even if she had to drag them out of Adrian Valderon himself.
End of Chapter 2