Chapter 15 Volatile Compounds #2
Every worst-case scenario he’s ever imagined pushes to the front of his mind at once.
He kneels beside her, checks her pulse. “Lila.” He says her name once, then again, louder. Nothing.
She’s warm. Breathing. Thank every god.
He pushes her hair from her face, saying things that don’t sound like words. Just a steady stream of panicked nonsense.
Behind him, Graham ambles over, entirely unhurried, completely unbothered.
He takes one look at the workstation, then at the spilled vial, and lets out a low laugh. “She chloroformed herself,” he says, already turning on the vents and recovering the station.
Theo glares up at him. “This is not fucking funny.” His voice cracks halfway through the sentence, and he hates that it does. He turns back to her, tapping her cheek lightly. “Lila. Come on. Wake up.”
She stirs—barely—but it’s enough to keep him from losing his mind. He exhales, slow and shaky, and pulls her body closer to his than he probably should.
Of course she would do this. Only Lila could turn him inside out and still make him huff a small laugh under his breath.
She’s unconscious, and somehow he still feels outmatched.
He doesn’t say her name again yet, but it’s there anyway—sitting heavy in his chest, right where it’s been for months.
He’s going to put her in a bubble. He’s never letting her out of his sight again.
He’ll handcuff her to himself if he has to. It sounds insane, even in his own head, but right now, sanity isn’t exactly the priority.
He just wants her awake, upright, and arguing with him again.
“You are so very fucked, my friend.” Graham claps him on the shoulder before walking back to the front of the lab.
Theo doesn’t bother looking up, because he knows Graham is right.
He really and truly is.
He didn’t mean to fall for her, but looking at her now, he can’t remember ever having had a choice in the matter.
It feels inevitable, the way gravity is inevitable. Constant and inescapable.
He just wishes he knew things would still be okay once all of this is over. That she’ll still be here. That whatever comes next doesn’t undo them.
If there even is a them.
He stays there, watching her breathe, hoping that for once, the evidence points them to something that ends with him keeping her. If she wants him.
So, so fucked.
Lila
I hear my name—distorted, panicked, and very close.
I come to with my face mashed into Theo’s chest and his big hand gripping my face.
His hold is firm, but not rough. His eyes move from my eyes to my nose to my mouth, like he’s trying to make sure every part of me is still attached.
I blink up at him, vision still fuzzy, and catch the look in his eyes.
Wide. Wild.
He’s definitely about three seconds away from throwing me over his shoulder and sprinting to the ER. Probably on foot.
“Oh my god,” he says, “you absolute menace. Wake up.”
Everything is cotton-soft and weirdly cozy.
“Huh,” I murmur. “You have pretty eyes.”
He looks at me, recalibrating. “Are you kidding me right now?”
“They’re soooooo brown. Like chocolate. Or coffee. My two favorite things.” I reach up to pat one of his pecs, miss, and then kind of thwap his collarbone. “S’fine. ’M very resilient. Science.”
“Science just knocked you the fuck out, Jennings.” He gently glides his fingers through the hair at my temple and I lean into his hand.
I shoot him a look, equal parts woozy and entertained. “Yeah, but like cool science.”
Theo closes his eyes, maybe contemplating throwing me into the chemical waste bin where I belong.
By the time I’m mostly conscious again, I’m sitting in a rolling chair with Theo kneeling in front of me.
“I cannot believe you chloroformed yourself,” he says.
“It was an accident,” I protest, “and also, in my defense, that project was very interesting. I was actually thinking about using it on you when it happened.”
He glares at me, a flat kind of look, but doesn’t say anything.
He doesn’t let me stand for ten minutes. Every time I try, he pushes me gently but firmly back down. At one point I think he’s doing it for my own good, but honestly, I suspect he just doesn’t trust me not to do something else reckless while high on chemical fumes.
“This is, without a doubt, the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever done,” he says.
“Oh, buddy,” I say, amusement flickering across my face as I prop my chin in my hand. “You underestimate me.”
August pipes up from the desk. “I’m in, by the way. Also, is Lila okay?”
“I’m fine,” I call.
“She’s not fine,” Theo says, pinching the bridge of his nose.
Theo rolls me in the chair toward August, who twists the screen toward us.
“The files on this thing? Chef’s kiss. Surveillance video, financial transactions, logs, and what looks like some very shady emails about Henry Mayfair’s tox report.
There’s a PDF in here that literally shows he was poisoned with hellebore.
Not even trace amounts. Not borderline. Like, this man was poisoned poisoned.
Capital P. Double tapped. Clocked out by chemistry.
The man was knocking on death’s door before the garrote ever touched the skin of his neck.
Not even logged in the official police report. ”
Theo and I look at each other. For a second, we forget the chloroform. Forget everything but the white-hot weight of discovery settling around us. That means Henry and Victoria both died in exactly the same way. And both instances of hellebore poisoning were wiped from evidence.
I would ask how that’s possible. But I know the answer.
Money can buy a lot of things.
“Oh,” I breathe, but before I have time to process the bomb he just dropped on us, he finds something else.
His brow furrows as he clicks again and again, navigating through folders with names like “Pending,” “Live Leads,” and one particularly bold one labeled “Narrative Arcs.” He snorts.
“You guys. This isn’t just hoarding evidence.
This is curated. Organized. There are timestamps, edited transcripts, and—hold up—theme music files? ”
Theo leans in. “Theme music?”
August double clicks on a file. A dramatic cello riff plays for three seconds before cutting off.
He points to the screen. “Baryn hasn’t been compiling all of this for blackmail, leverage, some sick obsession, or because he’s trying to cover anything up. He’s funneling it to a true crime podcast.” He pauses for dramatic effect and then drops the hammer. “His podcast.”
I startle. “I’m sorry, what?”
“It’s called Casket Case,” August says, deadpan. “Tagline: True crime. Real unsolved mysteries. No fluff. He’s listed as ‘B.R. Slate’ on the uploads. Anonymous, because it does seem like he uses editing software to change his voice, but—”
He clicks on an unedited audio file. Baryn’s voice fills the room. It’s unmistakably him. “The thing about murder,” he says, “is that it’s never about the act itself. It’s about who gets to tell the story afterward.”
“Sound familiar?” August asks.
I gape. “Shut. Up.”
“Nope.” August pops the p. “Dude has been researching his own family’s cases and is planning on leaking the info as serialized true crime content with creepy voiceovers and everything. Probably thinks he’s the morally tormented antihero of his own noir thriller.”
I stare at the screen like it might suddenly rearrange itself into something that makes sense. “I listen to that podcast.” I’m not about to tell them it’s my favorite, second only to Get the F*ck Out Already.
Theo’s gaze lingers, disapproving. “You’re telling me you’ve been listening to Baryn narrate crimes in his murdery ASMR voice and didn’t recognize it?”
“He uses a voice filter! And a fake name!” I throw my hands up. “Oh my god. I—he did that one about the girl in the suitcase with the orchids in her stomach. It was creepy as fuck and I’ve listened to it approximately five million times.”
August is clearly delighted. “You’re fangirling over our suspect. I love this.”
I shove a muffin at him to shut him up. “I am not fangirling. I hate him!”
Before I can regroup, Theo is suddenly crouching in front of me, fingers checking my pulse like he’s afraid I’m going to drop again. “You’re pale,” he says, face drawn tight. “Well. Paler.”
“I’m fine,” I insist, not wanting him to feel the way my heart rate picks up when he’s this close to me and his hands are on me.
“You passed out cold, Lila.” He doesn’t let go of my wrist.
“It was kind of fun,” I say, maybe a little too cheerfully. “I mean, not the floor part. Or the blacking out part. But the waking up to you hovering like you expected me to flatline and ruin your whole week? Ten out of ten.”
He rolls his eyes but I catch the flicker of a smile. “You’re infuriating.”
“Yet somehow still charming.”
“She is,” August agrees with me around a mouthful of muffin.
I take a deep breath and sit up straighter, the haze finally thinning completely. “Alright. Let’s get this wrapped. I’d like to not lose consciousness again today, if possible.”
Theo rises to his feet, “Back to the compound?”
“Back to the compound,” I say. “We’ve got a podcast-loving douchebag to profile and shit ton of evidence to try and unravel.”
He finally—reluctantly—lets go of my wrist.
I sit back in my chair, dizzy, doing a terrible job at keeping a straight face.
And this time, it’s not the chemicals.
“I’ll run the blood sample tonight,” Graham calls out as we head for the door, already typing something into his laptop with one hand and nursing his coffee with the other. “DNA takes a little longer. Gimme forty-eight hours and a whispered apology to Athena for what I’m about to do.”