Chapter 11 – The Director’s Wrath

Every now and then I have to pay Director Esdeath a visit.

Today was one of those days, and I was lowkey dreading it. Her office sat at the top of the administrative tower, all glass windows and cold metal furniture. The kind of place that screamed “you’re about to get fired” just from the aesthetic alone. I took the elevator up, watching the floor numbers climb while my stomach dropped with each ding.

The doors slid open with a mechanical hiss.

“Director Esdeath is expecting you.”

Her assistant didn’t even look up from her computer. Just pointed one manicured finger toward the massive oak door at the end of the hall. I walked past her desk, my shoes squeaking against the polished floor. Each step felt like walking toward my own execution.

I knocked twice.

“Enter.”

Her voice cut through the wood like a blade through butter. Cold. Sharp. Absolutely done with my existence.

I pushed the door open.

The office was freezing, like actually freezing. My breath came out in a visible puff. Esdeath sat behind her desk, wearing her usual military-style uniform that was somehow both professional and vaguely threatening. Her ice-blue hair was pulled back in a tight bun. Her eyes were the color of a glacier right before it crushed you.

She stared at me for a solid five seconds without blinking.

“Sit.”

I sat in the chair across from her desk. The leather was cold enough to make me flinch. She had her hands folded on top of a thick manila folder. My employee file, probably. Filled with every mistake I’d ever made.

“Do you know why you’re here?”

“Because you missed me?”

Her eye twitched. Just the tiniest movement, but I caught it. Strike one for my mouth running before my brain engaged.

“You broke protocol seventeen times this month.”

She flipped open the folder. Page after page of incident reports spilled out, each one highlighted in angry red ink. She started reading them aloud like she was listing war crimes.

“October third. You spent forty-seven minutes in Thalia’s cell. Regulation time is thirty minutes maximum.”

“She was having an emotional crisis—”

“October seventh. You allowed Loki to manifest furniture outside regulation parameters.”

I opened my mouth to defend that one, but she kept going.

“October twelfth. You brought your father—Patient Zero—coffee during his evaluation. Fraternization violation.”

“He’s literally my dad.”

She slammed the folder shut. The sound cracked through the room like a gunshot. I actually jumped in my seat, which was embarrassing but also valid because holy crap she looked ready to freeze me solid.

“Your relationship with the inmates is inappropriate.”

The temperature in the room dropped another ten degrees. Frost started forming on the edges of her desk. I could see my breath coming out in thick clouds now.

“I’m doing my job.”

“Your job is containment and observation. Not friendship. Not therapy sessions. Not whatever it is you’re doing with Thalia.”

Oh no. Here we go. The Thalia lecture. I’d heard this before from the board, from the warden, from literally everyone who had access to the security footage. Everyone had opinions about how Thalia looked at me.

“Thalia is contained.”

“Thalia is obsessed. There’s a difference.”

Esdeath stood up from her chair. She walked around the desk, her heels clicking against the floor with each step. She stopped right in front of me, looking down with an expression that could flash-freeze lava.

“She decorates her cell to impress you. She learns human customs to appeal to you. She threatens other staff members who speak poorly of you.”

“I can’t control what she does.”

“You encourage it.”

“I literally don’t—”

“You smile at her.”

I blinked. That was the accusation? Smiling? I smiled at everyone. It was called being polite. It was called not getting murdered by cosmic entities who could erase me from existence if they felt like it.

“I smile at lots of people.”

“Do you.”

It wasn’t a question. It was an accusation wrapped in two words and delivered with enough ice to sink the Titanic. Esdeath leaned against her desk, arms crossed over her chest. Her eyes bored into me like she was trying to read my thoughts and also judge them harshly.

“The other inmates are exhibiting similar attachment behaviors.”

“They’re just friendly.”

“Friendly.”

She said the word like it tasted bad. Like I’d just claimed the sky was green and grass was purple. She pushed off the desk and walked to the window, staring out at the facility grounds below.

“Loki says your name sixty-three times per conversation on average. I had someone count.”

Someone counted? Who had that much free time? Also, sixty-three? That seemed highkey excessive even for Loki.

“She’s a trickster goddess. It’s probably a bit.”

“Sarah created an entire domestic fantasy with you as the central figure.”

“That was a containment breach—”

“That you resolved by playing along with her delusion for forty-eight hours.”

Okay, yeah, that one was harder to defend. But in my defense, Sarah had been genuinely happy for the first time since her imprisonment. She’d made pancakes. She’d smiled without looking like she was about to eat someone’s fear. It had been weirdly wholesome.

“It worked.”

“It reinforced her attachment.”

Esdeath turned back to face me. The light from the window backlit her figure, turning her into a silhouette of judgment and cold fury. She looked like an avenging angel. Or a really angry boss who was about to fire me. Probably the second one.

“Your mother cooks for you.”

“She’s my mom.”

“Your mother is an inmate. Inmates do not cook for staff.”

“She gets bored—”

“She grows illegal plants in her cell to make your favorite meals.”

I mean, yeah, but when she put it like that it sounded bad. It was just Mom being Mom. She couldn’t help being nurturing. It was literally her whole thing as an earth goddess.

“It’s harmless.”

“Nothing in this facility is harmless.”

She walked back to her desk and pulled out another folder. This one was thinner but somehow looked more ominous. She opened it and slid a photograph across the desk toward me.

It was a picture of me leaving Thalia’s cell. She was visible through the closing door, and the look on her face was—

“Oh.”

“Yes. Oh.”

I stared at the photo. Thalia looked at me like I was the only thing in existence that mattered. Like I hung the moon and stars personally. Like she would burn down reality itself if I asked nicely. It was intense. It was obsessive.

It was exactly what everyone had been warning me about.

“I don’t encourage that.”

“Your mere existence encourages it.”

Esdeath took the photo back and filed it away. She sat down again, folding her hands on the desk. Her expression was unreadable now. Not angry, not cold. Just blank.

“The board is concerned.”

“About what?”

“About your effectiveness. About your judgment. About whether your unique position makes you qualified or makes you a liability.”

A liability. The word hit me like a punch to the gut. I’d spent my entire life being useful because of my immunity. It was the one thing that made me valuable. The one thing that gave me purpose. And now they were questioning it?

“I keep them contained.”

“You keep them content. There’s a difference.”

She pulled out a tablet and slid it across the desk. I picked it up, scrolling through incident reports. Dates and times. Every visit I’d made. Every conversation I’d had. Someone had been documenting everything.

“We have metrics now. Before you took over, escape attempts averaged three per week. Now it’s zero.”

“That’s good.”

“Before you, inmates refused cooperation seventy percent of the time. Now it’s five percent.”

“Also good.”

“Before you, staff casualties averaged two per month.”

I looked up from the tablet. Her eyes were locked on mine. Cold. Assessing. Waiting for me to understand.

“Now it’s zero. Because they behave for you. Because they want to please you. Because you have become the single point of failure in our entire containment protocol.”

Oh.

Oh no.

“If something happens to you, Kai, this entire facility collapses. Do you understand? You’re not just a guard. You’re the linchpin. And that terrifies the board.”

She stood up again, walking to a cabinet against the wall. She pulled out a bottle of something clear and two glasses. She poured two fingers into each glass and slid one across the desk to me.

“Drink.”

I drank. It burned going down. Vodka, maybe. Or something stronger. Esdeath downed hers in one smooth motion and poured another.

“They want me to recommend your termination.”

My blood went cold. Colder than her office. Colder than her ice powers could ever make me feel.

“What?”

“They want you gone. Transferred. Reassigned. They think the inmates’ attachment makes you a security risk.”

“But I—”

“I told them no.”

I stopped mid-sentence. Stared at her. She stared back, her expression still blank but her eyes flickering with something I couldn’t read.

“I told them you’re effective. I told them the metrics speak for themselves. I told them that removing you would cause more problems than it would solve.”

“Oh.”

“But I need you to understand something.”

She leaned forward, her hands flat on the desk. Her voice dropped lower, more intense.

“You cannot keep breaking protocol. You cannot keep blurring the lines. You cannot keep giving them hope that you’re anything more than their warden.”

“I’m not—”

“You are. Whether you mean to or not.”

She sat back, picking up her glass again but not drinking. Just holding it, watching the clear liquid swirl.

“The board is watching you now. Every move. Every visit. Every smile. They’re looking for a reason to justify their concerns. Don’t give them one.”

I set my empty glass down on the desk. My hands were shaking slightly. Whether from the cold or the conversation, I couldn’t tell.

“Is that all?”

“No.”

She pulled out one more document. This one was a formal write-up. She slid it across with a pen.

“Sign this. It’s a warning for protocol violations. Three strikes and you’re out. This is strike one.”

I picked up the pen. Stared at the paper. All those incident reports condensed into one official reprimand. I signed it, the pen scratching against paper too loud in the quiet office.

“Strike two happens when?”

“When you give me a reason.”

She took the paper back and filed it away. Then she looked at me again, and for just a second, I thought I saw something in her expression. Something almost like concern. Or maybe regret.

But it was gone before I could be sure.

“Dismissed.”

I stood up. My legs felt wobbly. I walked to the door, my hand on the handle, when her voice stopped me.

“Kai.”

I turned back.

She was still sitting at her desk, backlit by the window. Her expression was unreadable again.

“Be careful. They’re not your friends. They’re not your family. They’re weapons we keep locked up. Don’t forget that.”

I nodded and left.

The hallway felt warmer after her frozen office. I walked past her assistant, who still didn’t look up. I got in the elevator and pressed the button for the ground floor.

The doors closed.

I leaned back against the wall and exhaled hard.

She really hated me. Like genuinely despised my existence. Every word had been a barely contained accusation. Every look had been judgment. Strike one. They were keeping count now. Waiting for me to screw up so they could justify kicking me out.

The elevator dinged. Ground floor. I stepped out into the main facility corridor.

My phone buzzed. A text from Loki.

“Kai! Are you done with the scary ice lady? Want to play a game? :D”

I pocketed my phone without responding.

I needed to be more careful. More professional. More distant. If Esdeath was watching this closely, if the board was waiting for me to fail, I couldn’t afford to be friendly anymore.

I walked down the hall toward my office.

Behind me, in that frozen tower office, Director Esdeath probably sat at her desk thinking about how much of a liability I was. How much of a problem. How much she wished she could just fire me and be done with it.

Yeah.

She definitely hated me.