Chapter 9 #2
“I have class,” I said.
Sophia stood. “I’ll walk with you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
Sophia leaves to grab her bag.
* * *
Outside, Bellamont University smelled like rain and old stone.
Students crossed the quad with coffee cups and notebooks, their ordinary lives moving around the wound Katherine had left behind.
The memorial under the archway had grown overnight with more flowers and more notes and a stuffed white bear someone had probably bought from the campus store.
Sophia slowed when we passed it.
I did not. If I looked, I would have to decide what face to make.
At Westgrave Hall, Sophia stopped at the entrance.
“Are you sure?”
“No.”
Her expression tightened.
I reached out and squeezed her hand once.
“But I’m going anyway.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
She looked like she wanted to say something else. Instead, she leaned in and kissed my cheek.
“Call me if you need anything.”
“I will.”
“You won’t.”
“No,” I admitted. “Probably not.”
She sighed. “At least lie better.” I gave her the smile she wanted and walked inside.
* * *
The lab was already bright when I arrived, too bright, with white counters and glass cabinets and stainless steel instruments and labels printed neatly on every shelf.
Everything was clean enough to suggest purity, which felt funny considering how much living tissue people cut and stained and starved and stressed inside rooms like this.
Wendy stood near the incubator with Dr. Patel. Julian was at the bench pretending not to watch me. Christina smiled nervously when I entered. Elias sat at the computer with headphones around his neck, looking at a spreadsheet as if it had offended him personally.
Professor Moreau was nowhere in sight, and the relief came too fast.
Dr. Patel looked up. “Céline, good. You’re here. Professor Moreau wants you in his office before you start.”
I thanked her, and my voice sounded normal, which felt like a victory.
His office door was half-open.
I knocked once.
“Come in.”
He stood by the window with one hand in his pocket and the other holding a mug of coffee.
Morning light turned the edges of him deceptively soft.
Dark hair. Rimmed glasses. White shirt. Sleeves rolled to his forearms. No coat today.
No rain on his shoulders. No sign that he had stepped inside someone else’s locked apartment hours earlier and rearranged my life.
He looked like Professor Moreau again. Beloved, brilliant, and safe.
“Miss Martin,” he said. “You look tired.”
My hands curled at my sides. “You broke into my boyfriend’s apartment.”
He took a sip of coffee.
“Oh yes, I did do that, didn’t I?”
“Are you insane?”
A faint smile touched his mouth. “Still?”
I crossed the room before I could stop myself. “You had no right.”
“No.”
I stared at him. He did not bother to defend himself.
“No?” I repeated.
“No,” he said. “I had no right.”
“You’re not going to apologize?” I ask incredulously.
“Would you believe me if I did?”
“No. I probably would not.”
“Then it would be wasteful.”
I hated him so sharply my vision seemed to clear.
“You think this is funny?”
“No.” He set his mug down on the windowsill. “I think it was necessary.”
“To what? Scare me?”
“To clarify something.”
“What?”
“That Thad Rodriguez cannot keep you safe.”
His name in Vincent’s mouth sounded almost cruel because he said it correctly this time.
“You don’t get to decide where I’m safe,” I said.
“No. But I do get to observe where you are not.”
I took another step toward him.
“You come near me outside this lab again, and I’ll report you.”
“To whom, Selena?”
The question was gentle, but the emphasis on my real name posed the real threat.
My mouth went dry. Vincent tilted his head slightly.
“Dean Waverly? Campus security? The police? Chad’s father?”
“Stop.”
“What would you tell them?” He paused. “That I entered an apartment with no sign of forced entry? That you woke frightened and confused after a traumatic week? That your boyfriend slept through an event he cannot verify? That I, beloved Professor Moreau, somehow stood in a room where no one saw me come or go?”
My skin went cold. “I hate you,” I said.
“No,” he said softly. “You hate that I’m right.”
I lifted my hand before I knew I was going to do it. He caught my wrist midair. For one second, neither of us moved. My pulse beat against his fingers. He looked down at my hand, then back at my face.
“If you want to strike me,” he said, “do it when you are prepared for what comes after.”
I pulled free. This time, he let me. The office felt too small, too bright, too full of him. On his desk, beside a stack of lab reports, lay a slim black pen. Mine. I recognized it immediately. My stomach dropped.
Vincent followed my gaze. “You left that in orientation.”
“Did you keep it as a trophy?”
“Would that disturb you?”
“Yes.”
“Then perhaps.” He smirked.
A laugh escaped me, small and disbelieving. “You’re sick.”
“You said that too.”
“And yet you keep proving me right.”
His expression softened into something almost pleased.
“Careful, Selena. Repetition is the foundation of most good science.”
I moved toward the door. His voice stopped me before I reached it.
“You took off his bracelet.”
My hand froze on the knob. I had not realized he would notice.
“You told me it did not suit me.”
“And you listened.”
“No,” I said. “I just got bored of it.”
“Of course.”
I opened the door.
“Selena.”
I stopped because some stupid part of me still reacted when he said my name. His voice was quiet.
“If you ever decide to stop pretending you want safety, come to me.”
I looked at him over my shoulder. For a moment, I let every careful piece of myself fall away. The grief. The elegance. The softness. All of it. What remained was colder than I expected.
“If you ever touch my life like that again,” I said, “I’ll make you wish you had chosen another girl to mess with.”
Vincent smiled. Not the public smile. Not the warm one. The real one.
“Your threats only make yourself look more interesting to me.” He smirked, proud of himself.
I left before I could answer.
* * *
In the lab Dr. Patel explained contamination control while I washed my hands at the sink.
Warm water. Soap. Friction. Rinse. Repeat.
The rules were simple here. Clean surfaces.
Sterile tools. Controlled variables. Keep foreign organisms out of delicate systems, or watch everything you built become unusable. I dried my hands carefully.
Behind me, Julian laughed too loudly at something Wendy said. Christina dropped a pipette tip and apologized as if she had broken glass. Elias did not look away from his screen. Through the office window, Vincent watched me.
I met his eyes for exactly one second. Then I turned away. That was what he wanted, wasn’t it? To make himself unavoidable. To become the one thing in my life I could not charm or ignore or outmanoeuvre.
Fine. Let him watch.
Men like Vincent Moreau always believed themselves impossible to reach because everyone around them was too busy admiring the shine to look for the seams. But every system had a weakness. Every lock had a fault. Every controlled experiment could be contaminated if you knew where to breathe.
And if Professor Moreau wanted to make me his study, then I would make him mine.