On the train into downtown Riverton, Avery Collins kept one hand wrapped around the metal pole and the other around her phone, as if both were equally necessary to stay upright. The morning crowd swayed with every turn of the tracks, faces bent over screens, headphones in, coffee cups clutched like talismans. She tried to breathe slowly, the way Riley had told her the night before—inhale four counts, exhale four counts—but every time she looked up and saw the city sliding closer through the dusty window, her chest tightened again. Reed Financial. She was actually going to work at Reed Financial. The company name sat at the top of her employment contract and in the subject line of the welcome emails and somewhere heavy in the back of her mind, where it whispered things like, Don’t mess this up. Big companies don’t hire people like you twice.

When she stepped out of the station, the air was colder than she expected. Riverton’s downtown rose around her, glass and steel catching the pale light, traffic already thick. She followed the walking directions on her phone, turning when the map told her to, until the building appeared at the end of the block—taller than everything else, blue-tinted glass and sharp lines, the kind of place she’d only seen on news articles and career websites.

Reed Financial.

Across the front plaza, people in coats and tailored jackets moved with purpose, badge lanyards swinging. Avery slowed for a second, taking it in, then forced herself forward. Standing still in the middle of the sidewalk would just make her look lost, and she’d already promised herself she wouldn’t look lost on day one.

Inside, the lobby was quieter than she expected, sound absorbed by polished stone and high ceilings. A wall of screens displayed rotating financial headlines and a looping highlight video with muted footage of meetings and handshakes and city skylines. For a moment, the video cut to a shot of a man in a dark suit at a conference table, sleeves rolled to his forearms, expression intent on whoever sat across from him. There was no caption, but she recognized him from the website’s “Leadership” page.

Alexander Reed.

She looked away quickly, as if eye contact through a screen could get her in trouble.

“Morning.” The security guard’s voice pulled her back. “New hire?”

“Yes,” she said, trying not to sound out of breath. “Avery Collins.”

He checked her ID, printed a temporary badge, and pointed her toward the elevator bank with a practiced, neutral kindness that made her shoulders drop half an inch. She clipped the badge to her blazer and joined a small cluster of people waiting for an elevator, watching the numbers move.

On the fourteenth floor, the doors opened to an open-plan office—rows of desks, low partitions, computer monitors, a scatter of potted plants that someone was clearly trying to keep alive. The air smelled faintly of coffee and printer toner. She found the small sign taped to a cubicle wall with her name in clean block letters: AVERY COLLINS.

Her desk had a new laptop docked and a black office chair still adjusted for nobody. There was a stack of forms, a welcome packet in Reed blue, and a small sticky note with a smiley face drawn next to the words:

Hi Avery — welcome!

Come find me when you’re settled.

— Jenna

“Hey, you made it.” A woman appeared at the edge of the cubicle, mug in hand, blond hair pulled into a loose knot. “I’m Jenna. Your manager. Well. Assistant manager. The official title is complicated.”

Avery straightened, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

“Hi. Yes. Sorry, I just—wasn’t sure where to put my bag.”

“Anywhere under the desk is fine.” Jenna smiled easily. “First days are overrated. We’ll start slow. You get your badge downstairs okay?”

“Yes. They gave me this.” Avery touched the plastic clip like proof.

“Perfect. I’ll walk you through the systems in a bit. For now, just log in, read the harassment training email you’re legally required to ignore until you’re less overwhelmed, and pretend you know what all the acronyms mean.”

Avery laughed before she could stop herself. The sound came out lighter than she felt.

“Thank you.”

“Seriously,” Jenna said. “You’re fine. If anyone gives you a hard time, send them to me.”

When Jenna left, Avery sat down and powered on the computer. The Reed logo flashed, then the login screen, then a clean desktop with a dozen icons. Her inbox blinked: nineteen unread messages. Welcome to Reed. Benefits Orientation. Cybersecurity Training. Reed Wellness Program. She opened them one by one, skimming, trying not to get stuck on any single line.

Outside the cubicle, phones rang; keyboards clacked. Snatches of conversation drifted over the partitions—terms she recognized from accounting classes tangled with ones she didn’t. She focused on the email titled Your First Day at Reed Financial, reading the bullet points carefully. Meet with HR at ten. Lunch on your own. Check in with your manager for your first-week plan.

Nothing about messing up. Nothing about how many mistakes you were allowed before they realized they’d hired the wrong person.

She checked the time. Nine thirteen.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. A text from Riley.

You alive?

She typed back with one hand under the desk.

Barely. Lobby smelled like money. Office smells like toner. I have 19 emails and it’s not even 9:15.

Riley’s reply came almost instantly.

Look at you, corporate girl. You got this. Don’t lick anything shiny.

Avery bit back another laugh and slid the phone away. She opened the Reed Wellness Program email next, because it sounded less terrifying than Cybersecurity Compliance.

At Reed, we believe in taking care of our people.

She scrolled.

As part of our Wellness Initiative, employees may be enrolled in optional programs including health screenings, nutrition consultations, and personalized meal planning in partnership with our in-house dining team.

There was a link to a survey about dietary preferences and allergies. She clicked it, scanned the questions, then closed the tab. She’d fill it out later, when she wasn’t worried about accidentally opting into something expensive.

At nine fifty-five, an HR coordinator with a tablet appeared at her desk and led her and two other new hires to a glass-walled conference room. There were name tents on the table, a carafe of water, and a tray of pastries that looked too perfect to touch. The coordinator launched into a smooth speech about company values, benefits, and where not to park.

Avery listened carefully, taking notes even when everyone else seemed content to just nod.

“Most of your day-to-day questions,” the coordinator said, “you’ll bring to your manager. But one thing I want to highlight is our culture around performance and feedback. We try very hard to be clear. You should never be surprised at a review.”

That sounded like a promise and a warning at the same time.

After HR, Jenna walked her through the accounting software, the shared drive, the ticketing system for internal requests. By late morning, Avery’s head felt full in the way that had nothing to do with food and everything to do with information.

“You’re doing fine,” Jenna said, noticing the way she was blinking at the screen. “Really. The first week is just…absorbing. We don’t expect you to move mountains yet.”

“Yet?” Avery echoed, and Jenna grinned.

“Give it a month.”

Around noon, Jenna pointed her toward the elevators.

“Go eat,” she said. “There’s the cafeteria on twelve, or there’s a bunch of places across the street. Just don’t get lost.”

“Is that a thing that happens?”

“With analysts, all the time. They follow their phones into a different dimension and never come back.”

“I’ll try to make it back,” Avery said.

She took the elevator down with a group of strangers, all wearing the same badge in different ways. In the cafeteria, she picked something safe—a turkey sandwich, a small soup—and found a table by the window. The river cut through the city below, a strip of dull silver between buildings.

People sat in clusters, talking about markets and clients and shows she had never heard of. Avery ate quietly, letting the noise blur into a steady hum. It was easier than trying to join in.

Her phone buzzed again.

Don’t die at lunch, Riley had written. Also, steal me a fancy napkin.

She looked at the plain white napkin under her soup and smiled. So far, Reed napkins were disappointingly normal.

Back upstairs, her inbox had grown by six more emails. One of them was labeled:

ACTION REQUIRED: Health Screening & Meal Program

She clicked.

As part of our expanded Wellness Initiative, Reed Financial is conducting baseline health screenings for select departments. Participation includes complimentary consultation and, if eligible, a personalized lunch program at no cost to the employee.

Her eyes skimmed past bloodwork appointment, lab on-site, confidentiality, data protection. At the bottom, there was a time slot for the following week already reserved for her, with an attached calendar invite.

She glanced over the cubicle wall. No one else looked particularly alarmed. Maybe this was standard. Big companies did things like this, right? Screenings. Programs. Optional things that didn’t feel optional when the word required sat in the subject line.

She accepted the invitation and told herself there was no point overthinking it.

At three, Jenna pinged her on the internal chat to bring some printed reports by a conference room on seventeen. Avery double-checked the report headers, grabbed the stack, and headed for the elevators, counting floors.

Seventeenth-floor hallways were quieter, carpet muffling footsteps. Through the glass wall of a large conference room, she saw a group mid-meeting—suits, tablets, a projector screen with graphs.

And at the head of the table, the man from the lobby video. The one from the website. Dark suit, shirtsleeves rolled just enough to look unintentional, attention fixed on a chart as if it mattered more than the rest of the world.

Alexander Reed.

He didn’t look up as she passed. He didn’t know she existed. Of course he didn’t. She was a new hire in accounting, and he was the name on the building.

Avery kept her gaze on the room numbers until she found the right door, knocked once, and slipped into a smaller conference room where Jenna and two other managers were waiting.

By the time she got back to her desk, the sun had shifted, light slanting differently across the floor. Her shoulders ached in a way that told her she’d been too tense for too long.

She sat, breathed in for four counts, out for four. The worst part of the first day was over. She hadn’t broken anything. She hadn’t gotten lost. She hadn’t tripped in front of the CEO.

Her inbox pinged.

Appointment Confirmation: Lab Screening — Reed Wellness.

She clicked it open, then minimized it just as quickly. Whatever that would be, she would deal with it next week.

For now, she focused on the folder Jenna had shared with her, the one labeled TRAINING, and told herself that if she just kept reading and kept moving, eventually this place would feel less like a building from someone else’s life and more like somewhere she belonged.