Chapter 10
The dawn of Monday morning felt like an official prison break. The second the pale, watery sunlight cut through the grime of my bedroom window, I was already on my feet. I didn’t care that my bones still ached from a weekend spent curled into a tight, defensive knot on a hard mattress. My only priority was escape. I dressed in a blur, stepping into my mandatory black heels with a grim winced tolerance for the familiar pinch, grabbed my bag, and slipped out of the house while the hallways were still completely drowned in the heavy, snoring silence of my parents' room.
When I finally stepped off the crowded public bus and walked through the towering glass facade of the corporate headquarters, a profound, almost pathetic sense of relief washed over me. The grand lobby, with its b
