The Herd - Andrea Bartz Page 0,2

Mikki pulled at the leather jacket slung over my forearm. “C’mon, let me give you the tour and then I want to hear all about Minnesota.”

“Michigan.”

“Shit. This is how badly I need an update.” She grinned, freckles dancing on her cheeks, and spun toward the sunlight at the far end of the space. I’d hoped to see Mikki a couple weeks ago; she’d hosted a big “Misfit Toys Friendsgiving” in her rent-controlled, ramshackle apartment. But when the day had come, I’d been too tired and disoriented to attend.

Hana announced she had to answer some emails and split off as Mikki pointed out a chic café counter along a wall, avocado toast on vintage-looking plates sliding across its marble top: “Coffee is free, but everything else is expensive.” She bopped along, smiling serenely, oblivious to the Herders stealing glances at us as we passed. Mikki’s superpower is that she very rarely cares—about anything, really. When I’d announced my book deal on Facebook—my most-liked post to date—she’d commented only to say the CEO of the company I was writing about was sort of hot. At the time, it had stung, but now her cheerful indifference was a relief: one less person pressing me about my research, the months that got bunched up and knotted and ended with ambulances, with sirens chopping the air.

She and I hooked right toward a final set of doors; one led into the bathroom and one was marked MOVE with a faint capital L behind the M. But it was the third door that Mikki took me through, into a small room with birchwood lockers on one side and clothing racks on the other, holding up a rainbow of coats.

“You can pay for a locker if you want to keep stuff here overnight,” Mikki said, plunging a hanger into my jacket’s shoulder, “but nobody really steals anything. Just now I left my laptop out on a table.” She gestured back into the sun-splashed room, with its blue velvet workstations and glossy acrylic chairs girdling a long, medieval-looking table. “Everyone’s so well vetted.”

“Except that someone broke in last night, right? A vandal.” I followed her back into the brightness. “Aren’t people freaked out?”

She leaned in, lowered her voice. “Babe, most people don’t know. But it’s weird, you need a bunch of different keys to get in. I don’t even have them all. And the security camera in the elevator, it’s motion-activated—no footage from last night.” She paused in front of the lipstick wallpaper, the makeshift police tape, then ducked and ran past it like a slapstick ninja. I stifled a giggle and followed.

“Eleanor will be so mad if she sees us,” she hissed, leading me into a room and fumbling for the light switch.

“So will my sister,” I replied as the lights blinked on. Hundreds of them: vintage-looking bulbs ringing six oval mirrors, a purple stool perched in front of each, the countertop lined with Gleam beauty products. I knew Mikki had done the graphic design on their packaging, jade-green words on a dove-gray background. I was about to reach for a lipstick, as entranced as a magpie spotting something shiny, when movement in the mirror made me turn around.

Mikki was staring at the back wall, her arms crossed. I followed her gaze up to where the striped mauve and white wall met the ceiling: black spray paint, deliberate bubble letters.

UGLY CUNTS

“Someone really sucks at writing positive affirmations,” I said after a moment.

Mikki whipped around and smiled. “Some jealous idiot. Probably a dude all enraged that there’s five thousand square feet on the surface of the planet he’s not allowed to dominate. Maybe someone from the Antiherd.”

“ ‘The Antiherd’?”

She rolled her eyes. “It’s a secret online hate group dedicated to Eleanor and the Herd. Or that’s the rumor—I haven’t seen the message board. You heard a group of guys tried to sue us for violating antidiscrimination laws earlier this year? Word is that was organized through the Antiherd.”

“Gross.” But interesting. My journalist antennae went up—there was an article there. Just as quickly, I dismissed the thought: It was a topic Eleanor and Hana would never, ever let me cover. I looked around the room again. “No cameras?”

“None. Ask Hana about that.” She flapped her hand. “Eleanor said someone’s wallpapering over it tonight. She was so horrified by it she wouldn’t even tell me what it said. She hates the word.”

“What, ‘cunt’? Weird they used it, then.” I cocked my head. “Actually, I guess it’s not that weird. It’s