A loud crash woke me up the next morning.

  Someone shouted from another room: “PPD! Nobody move!”

  I didn’t even have the time to get out of bed before they kicked in my door, and two fully armed cops rushed in, one with a pistol, the other with a submachine gun held over his chest.

  Both pointed their weapons straight at me. “Hands where we can see them! Get out of bed!”

  Terrified, I raised my trembling hands from under the blanket. One cop came over, grabbed me by the wrist, and pulled me up. Thankfully, I was wearing the shirt and pants from yesterday, as I didn’t even change after coming home. Though being dressed in bloodied clothes did not look great before the police.

  My knees nearly gave out, but the officer held me upright and led me out of my room.

  In the hallway, my flatmates were already lined up against the wall, both looking terrified to death.

  The policemen placed me beside them and kept watch.

  The others, three more policemen, began tearing our apartment apart. They opened every drawer, tossed everything out, like they were searching for a nuclear bomb.

  I didn’t dare say a word or move, though I felt the burning gaze of my flatmates on me. Yeah, I stood there with a white shirt, which happened to be dark red from my own blood.

  In ten minutes, the police turned our place into a landfill of our own belongings.

  The searching cops spoke to the officer in charge, who then came over to us. “Get dressed and pack the essentials. You’re coming with us. You have ten minutes.”

  The girl from the League Couple burst into tears, but we all went to pack. An armed policeman followed each of us.

  I packed my laptop, some clothes, a figurine of an angel my mom once gave me, and other small keepsakes from Ireland. Why did the police have us pack?

  That wasn’t any protocol, as far as I knew. When cops bagged someone, they didn’t let them take their stuff. “May I change?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  I put on my last clean suit, the only one not yet soaked in my blood, grunting with pain whenever I made any larger move.

  Things didn't hurt as badly as yesterday though. Endurance most likely increased my pain threshold. Still, the worst stat from the system, but better than nothing.

  When I was done, the officer gestured with his weapon for me to step outside. He led me down the stairs to the street, where four police cars and a van were waiting. He took me to a car and opened the door.

  I got in, where another uniformed officer awaited in the back seat, and two more sat in the front. All had the typical, disinterested, cop-at-work expressions.

  The armed cop closed the door behind me, knocked on the roof, and the car drove off.

  I looked at the officer sitting beside me. “What’s going on?”

  He shook his head. “We have nothing to talk about.” His voice was so firm that I just shut my mouth.

  As adrenaline slightly subsided, tiredness washed over me. I used the drive to rest a little. Strangely enough, being arrested by the police didn’t feel nearly as bad as dealing with Isabella.

  Sure, they could throw me in jail, but Isabella could make me share an office with her, which would be about three thousand times worse.

  Actually, getting arrested wasn’t bad at all, as by the time I would get out, the chihuahua demon would be long gone. And then I could start finding jobs and level up nicely on my own.

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  We drove for about twenty minutes before the car stopped. I looked through the window, and the Lucielle Legal logo loomed on the wall of the skyscraper next to us.

  My heart sank into my stomach.

  “Off to work,” the cop next to me said, took out my gun and holster from his door, and put them next to me. “You forgot this.”

  Completely stunned and terrified, I wrapped the holster around me and slid the gun into it. By the weight, they left a full magazine inside it.

  I got out of the car, taking my bags.

  The police drove away.

  Dragging my bags behind me, I stumbled into the building, scanned my ID, and walked to the elevator.

  My phone buzzed.

  I glanced at the notification. A message from IMDC, saying: 'The room behind the director’s office.'

  I entered the elevator and rode up to the top floor. The trip through the carpet-covered hallway felt like the last march one did before their execution.

  I wanted nothing more than to run. But where would I go?

  If she could send the police after me, she could have me collected from anywhere.

  I spotted her through the glass door of what was a meeting room yesterday.

  Isabella sprawled over a chair, boots on the central desk, laptop in her lap, body twisted into a position that would dislocate a gymnast’s spine. Besides her usual suit, cross, and chain belt, she now wore different designer heels, and on her head, she had bright pink cat-ear headphones with the words fuck off written on the headband.

  I walked in. The meeting room featured a large central table, encircled by six office chairs.

  Isabella graced me with a wicked grin.

  I dropped my bags by the wall and stepped up to her. I had no idea what to say. What could I say?

  She pushed one ear of the headphones aside and turned the laptop to face me. On the screen was a live feed of a bare room where Jessica sat crying at a table across from a detective who was clearly interrogating her.

  Jessica wasn’t even my girlfriend. She was just a girl that I went on three dates with. We kissed twice, and that was it. “She didn’t do anything wrong,” I whispered.

  “I told you yesterday to break up with her and to move in with me. You didn’t do either, so I took matters into my own hands. Failure breeds consequences. The police searched her place this morning and are interrogating her about what she knows about you kidnapping children. That should be more than enough for a breakup, don’t you think?”

  I shook my head.

  I used to laugh at how over-the-top villains were in movies. No one could be that evil, right? But looking at Isabella, I realized those films actually underestimated how far one’s depravity could go.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Your former life ended two days ago. She no longer fits into your life. Neither do your flatmates. So, out of the kindness of my heart, I’ve removed them from your new life, and they even survived it. That’s rare, as far as I’m concerned.”

  I wanted to punch her. My hand even twitched. But I stopped myself. Our fight yesterday made the gap in our power painfully clear. The last thing I needed was another round of whipping and bleeding.

  “Sit down,” she ordered, closing the camera window. “We’ve got a lot of work today.”

  I pulled my laptop from my backpack and sat down at the desk.

  “I’ve sent you a package of images,” Isabella said. “They’re of major world cities, edited by our corporate AI to look like that city behind the portal. We need to identify which city it is. Of course, it would be easier if you just went there and found out, but you’re not ready for that yet.”

  Work. Yeah, I could ignore all the craziness and just focus on the task at hand. “Where do you think it is?”

  “Not just where, but also when,” she replied. “The portal might lead to the future, or into an alternate reality. We need to find out what the case is, and if it happens in the future, then prevent it. Our corporation owns billions of dollars of real estate in every major city, and I am not explaining to Luci why she has to write off those investments.”

  Oh, silly me, and here I thought we might be trying to save the world or some people or have any other noble motivation. No, we needed to protect corporate real estate investments.

  And I didn’t even want to know who Luci was.

  I opened my laptop, clicked the link in the email she had sent me, and was taken to the archive. I started going through the images, and a strand of her hair lashed me across the back. I yelped in pain.

  “Focus,” Isabella snapped. “You can’t identify a city in half a second.”

  I returned to the first image and started examining it more carefully. I had to find a way to get away from her.

  After about thirty minutes, I got bored and opened YouTube in another tab. Her hair lashed my back so hard my eyes watered.

  “Concentrate on your work.”

  I closed YouTube. I had to get out. But how, and where?

  Suddenly, Director Jackson walked in and greeted Isabella.

  She didn’t even look up, just pointed to her headphones, at the fuck off written on the headband.

  The director looked at me, gave me a discreet thumbs-up by his side, and left.

  Great. He couldn’t help me either.

  I survived until the afternoon. Then Isabella turned to me. “How far are you?”

  “About halfway,” I said.

  She leapt up, walked over, and leaned her chin on my shoulder. “No, you’re barely a third in. Keep working. You’re not eating until you’re done.”

  I nodded.

  She flicked my ear and walked off. The office door closed behind her, and the sound of her steps quickly faded.

  Finally.