Neurovance

Chapter 1

NOVA play: Every Breath You Take by Chase Holfelder

Ilived alone.

So the bouquet of forget-me-nots that seemed to have just… appeared on my bedside table was more than a little concerning.

I stared at the sky-blue blossoms, and their starburst canary eyes stared right back.

It wasn’t clear if they’d been there when I got out of bed. I hadn’t bothered putting my glasses on before stumbling into my ensuite to take a shower.

Stupid of me.

Whoever had put those flowers there could have been in the room with me, and I wouldn’t have even seen them because I hadn’t been wearing my glasses.

My body shook violently at the thought.

I needed to be more careful if this was going to keep happening.

In my defense, these unwanted gifts were a relatively new development. The flowers had only started appearing roughly a week or so ago.

At first, I thought it was a strange prank my best friend, Melanie, was playing on me. But when I’d asked her if she’d been sneaking flowers into my apartment, she’d grown uncharacteristically quiet and told me that I should call the police immediately.

I, of course, did just that the second I realized a stranger was breaking into my home and leaving me ominous gifts.

Unfortunately, there’s not really much the police can do about such things unless they catch the person in the act… and whoever was leaving these flowers for me never stuck around long enough for me to catch them.

Still, every morning, I discovered a new bouquet replacing the one I’d inevitably thrown away the day before, and each time the bleating fear that pulsed desperately through my chest grew louder.

Tightening my towel around my waist, I pushed my glasses further up my nose and approached the sinister bouquet on shaky legs.

There was a note.

Of course there was.

There was always a note.

The first one had said:

I’m not going anywhere, Milo.

This one was even more disturbing.

‘Put on what I’ve laid out for you, please.’

My fingers were shaking so badly that it took a few tries for me to read the handwriting on the thick, expensive cardstock that had been left next to the flowers.

Turning to scan the room, my heart leapt to my throat as I realized my new stalker had laid an outfit out for me to wear on the armchair in the corner of my room.

The pile of messy clothes that usually occupied the chair was nowhere in sight. Instead, there was a neatly folded pair of navy blue slacks and a button-up shirt with famous math equations embroidered into it.

What the…?

I approached the chair and examined the clothing, running my fingers over the stitched E=mc2. Both pieces had come from my own wardrobe.

Why had they chosen clothes for me to wear?

What the heck was happening?

My stomach churned with nausea.

What would happen if I didn’t wear the clothes?

What would happen if I did?

I hovered in front of the chair, mind racing.

Would doing what this stranger asked be enabling them?

If I didn’t obey, would they escalate?

They seemed to be escalating either way…

I didn’t know what to do.

My phone dinged, and I jumped nearly a foot in the air.

God, I hoped it was Melanie.

She was supposed to be picking me up shortly to take me to see my mom at the long-term care facility I’d recently enrolled her in.

Melanie would know what to do.

I scurried over to my bed, snatching my phone up from where it was still plugged into its charger.

Hurrying to unlock the device, my heart sank when I realized it wasn’t Melanie who’d texted me.

It was a message from an unknown number.

Unknown:

Put it on, Milo.

My eyes bulged, and I glanced frantically around the room as if I might find whoever this creep was standing in the corner, leering at me. Obviously, they weren’t anywhere to be seen.

Milo:

Who is this? Are you the person who keeps breaking into my apartment?

My fingers trembled as I typed out a response, and I rushed to my bedroom window, quickly drawing the curtains closed in case this stranger was somehow watching me from outside.

My phone chimed again, and I opened the new message to find the stranger had completely ignored my question.

Instead, they’d just sent another demand.

Unknown:

Don’t ask questions when I tell you to do something. Do as I say, or there will be consequences.

An uncharacteristic flair of anger licked the base of my stomach at the stranger’s response.

Who the heck did this person think they were?

I didn’t have time for this.

I had my hands full enough with my mother as it was. The last thing I needed was some psychopathic stalker ordering me around.

I wasn’t interesting enough to have a damn stalker anyway.

My entire life, I’d either been invisible or the butt of most jokes.

Milo Murphy—the Biotech nerd who was so accident-prone that everyone had called him Murphquake since he was a small child.

This was probably just some stupid prank from Dylan or one of his mean friends.

It wouldn’t be the first time Dylan went out of his way to mess with my head.

Memories of how that douche canoe had humiliated me in front of an entire lecture hall at MIT swam before my eyes.

‘You actually thought I wanted you? Hear that, everyone? Murphquake thought I was actually into him!’

He’d called me desperate for believing he’d actually wanted to go out with me. Which I suppose was true in retrospect.

I was desperate. Desperate for companionship of any kind. I’d never had any friends, let alone a boyfriend.

So when Dylan had started giving me even small scraps of attention, I’d latched onto him, desperately soaking up any tiny drop of affection he’d been willing to give me.

I hadn’t been able to see the red flags. I’d been too wrapped up in the hope that someone seemed to be interested in me for once.

How wrong I had been.

Dylan might not have cared about me the way I’d hoped, but he was certainly cruel and insane enough to organize an elaborate prank like this.

Though, I had to wonder who was the pathetic one if he was still going this far out of his way to torment me, considering I’d graduated from MIT two years ago now.

Pathetic.

Milo:

Screw off, Dylan. If this is you, istg I’ll press charges for harassment.

Unknown:

Dylan is dead. There will be more deaths if you don’t listen. This is not a test you want to fail, Milo. Do as you’re told.

A chill rolled through me, and I froze for a moment before remembering the time Dylan had pretended he’d been in an accident to see if I would come rushing to the hospital to check on him.

My cheeks burned at the humiliating memory of me desperately begging the triage nurse to let me back to see him when it had all been part of an elaborate prank to bully me.

My face now hot with anger, I scoffed in irritation.

I was even more sure now that this was Dylan trying to screw with me. He was doing this to get me to text him to see if he was alright. Then he’d just laugh at me and accuse me of still being obsessed with him or something.

Letting out an annoyed huff, I tossed my phone on my bed and barrelled right past the armchair with the outfit my not-so-mysterious stalker wanted me to wear.

Instead, I changed into a pair of black joggers and a t-shirt with the NASA logo on it.

I wasn’t about to let that asshole bully me any more than he already had.

Before my father died and my mother got sick, I was much more of a timid person.

The old Milo would have been absolutely losing his mind right now.

But… there’s something about surviving trauma that hardens a person.

Nothing could be worse than waking up alone in a hospital, only to learn you had been in one of only two N-car accidents in recorded history.

Remembering how confused I’d been, waking up battered and alone, I rubbed the large now-healed scar that ran up the inside of my right forearm. It was still pink and a permanent reminder of the day I’d lost my father.

He’d been with me in the car, and unfortunately, he hadn’t made it.

Having to go and identify my father’s mangled corpse had been one of the most horrifying experiences of my life… so, Dylan and his stupid, creepy stalker games weren’t scaring me like I knew he wanted them to.

They were just making me angry.

I’d been through enough. I didn’t need or deserve to be tormented like this.

Ignoring the burning desire to fire off another angry message to the unknown number, I made my way into my kitchen/living room split and got to work doctoring up my coffee.

Stirring in my coconut milk creamer, I stared pensively at the bouquet of forget-me-nots through the open door to my bedroom.

Melanie strode into my apartment. “Milllooooo,” she sang in greeting, spinning her keys around her perfectly manicured finger. Her enamel chilli-pepper keychain glinted in the early morning light before disappearing into her expensive-looking clutch.

Everything about Melanie was expensive. She was the Chief Operating Officer at Neurovance—one of the most innovative biotech companies in the western hemisphere.

I’d actually met Melanie at a networking event in one of my many attempts to get a job after I graduated from MIT.

You would think being a genius with a 4.0 and a master’s in Neurotech from MIT would have made it easy for me to find a job. Unfortunately, it’s true what they say… It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.

And who I knew were complete boomerangs. Dylan and his crappy friends had made sure to tell anyone who would listen how much of a loser I was.

Melanie had been the only person in the biotech industry who had bothered to give me the time of day, and for that I’d been grateful.

She’d also been the only person to really try to help me get my foot in the door anywhere when I’d been desperate for some sort of income to help cover medical bills.

Not just my medical bills, but my mother’s as well. After my father passed, my mother’s mental health took a drastic downturn.

I’m not talking about the type of grieving you would expect from someone who just lost their life partner.

Her mind completely broke. Overnight, she could barely recall who I was, let alone her own name.

She didn’t seem to know where she was anymore, and her doctors said she was suffering from something close to early-onset Alzheimer’s.

Though, they were baffled at how quickly it had progressed.

When I’d told Melanie I had actually applied for a job at Neurovance a few weeks prior to the N-car accident, she told me she would happily tell HR to review my application.

I’d been so excited at first when they reached out requesting an interview, until I read through the requirements of the job.

Due to Neurovance’s extremely high-profile work and the sensitive nature of their IP, they had very strict rules about employee leave.

Most Neurovance employees were asked to, more or less, live on campus, and could only venture out to visit friends and family after filling out enough paperwork to fluster even the most meticulous bureaucrat.

So, needless to say, when Neurovance reached out about an interview, I needed to decline.

With my mother as sick as she was, I couldn’t accept a position that would keep me away from her for so long.

Instead, I’d spent the last two years dealing with my father’s estate and trying to get my mother set up in a long-term care facility.

Melanie, shockingly enough, had stayed my friend through all of this.

When I told her my reasoning for declining the interview, she checked in regularly, asking about my mom’s health.

She’d researched all the best specialists to help with my mother…

and she’d even pulled some strings to get her into the home she was living in now.

The facility—Synapse Springs—was actually owned by Neurovance, and they had some of the best memory therapy professionals in the world on staff.

Their waitlist was several years long, and the cost of reserving a spot could double as a down payment on most people’s homes.

Because of Melanie’s connections, my fee had been waived, and my mother had been bumped to the top of the list. I’d just moved her in a few weeks ago, and she’d been settling in really well.

I never would have been able to afford to get my mother into Synapse Springs if it hadn’t been for Melanie.

Before I knew what was happening, I found myself with one of my first-ever friends, and she was a friend with so many high-powered connections that it made my head spin.

I truly don’t know what I would have done without her.

I owed her so much, so the last thing I wanted to do was burden her with yet another one of the freaking tragedies that seemed to constantly plague me.

I decided not to bring up the threatening texts or the flowers. There was nothing she could do about it anyway, and I didn’t want to worry her unnecessarily.

I should have known better.

Melanie tossed her long, dark hair over her shoulder as she entered, and she beamed at me, though the smile slipped right off her face when she noticed what I was staring at.

Her brown eyes widened behind her stylish cat-eye glasses, and she bit her lip, frowning as her gaze fell on the periwinkle flowers sitting innocently on my end table.

“Oh my god…” she gasped. “They broke in again?”

Kicking myself for not throwing out the offending flowers before she arrived, I sighed, nodding. “Yeah...”

Her frown deepened as she helped herself to a seat at my kitchen table.

“Tell me everything.”