The door was open. Inside was a small, closet-size room with an old man sitting behind a single desk. It had to be a check-in room. The clock above the desk said I had one minute to spare.

I couldn’t believe I’d made it. I was out of breath, but I was there on time. “Maité Martinez. I’d like to take the test.”

“You’re fifteen seconds late.” The old man shook his head at me.

That was total bullshit. “The clock says I’m on time.” I pointed behind him.

“My lace says you’re late.” He didn’t even look behind him to check.

No. No fucking way. I wasn’t having that. “Please let me take the test.”

He leaned back in his chair, clasping his hands over his stomach. “You’re late. I can’t. That’s the rule.”

“Even if I was late, which I wasn’t, by your count it’s fifteen seconds.” That barely even qualified as late.

“Getting longer now…” He was weaving his hands through the air, like he was reading something on his lace and not paying attention to me at all.

The image of my fingers wrapping around his neck was vivid enough in my mind that I hardly trusted myself. I crunched the empty water tube in my hand to keep from reaching over the table. “Let me take the test. Please.”

He stared me down and I really, really wanted to hit him.

“I won’t take up more of your time. You have to sit here during the test time anyway, right?”

He tilted his head to the side.

I hoped this guy ended up in a hell worse than Abaddon. “How many people are taking it?”

“None.”

Then what was his problem? “So it won’t bother anyone that I start late?”

“It’ll bother me. That means I leave here late.”

He just made this easy. “Okay. That’s fine. I’ll take time off the end of the test.” When he said nothing, I upped the ante. “I’ll finish thirty minutes early.”

“You say that now, but you’re not going to do that. You’re going to need that time.” He didn’t look convinced, but I didn’t care about that.

He wanted to make a deal. I could work with that.

I propped my forearms on the table and leaned forward. “What do you want?” I was desperate, and he knew it.

“You’re a woman.”

As long as it wasn’t anything creepy, I could probably make it work. “I am.” But if he thought he was getting any kind of favors for this, he was dead wrong. He could go ice himself if that’s what he wanted.

“You know the woman in the lunchroom.”

Maybe I wasn’t his type. “Eh. We’re not friends, but I bunk with her. You want a hookup?”