CHAPTER 15 #2
The deep timber of his voice vibrated in my chest, as I practically swallowed every word out of his mouth. The authority in his tone demanded to be obeyed, and as I glanced around the class, not one student had their face buried in a phone screen.
I placed my phone onto the small folding table, opening up my audio app, and clicked record .
“This is your first Bramwell class?” Spencer whispered beside me.
I gave a sharp nod.
“He doesn’t like to be recorded. Kinda weird, I know, but if he catches you recording, he’ll take your phone. All the notes are available on DracNoti. You can edit as you go.”
“Oh. Shit.” In swiping up my phone, I knocked it off my small desk, sending it to the floor on a clatter.
After retrieving it, I sat up to find those fiery eyes staring at me with such intimidating annoyance, I had to look away, and clearing my throat, I held the phone in my lap.
His eye twitched. “It’s imperative that you keep up and pay attention to the material. There’s a lot to cover, and I’ll be moving at a fast pace.”
Gaze lowered, I prayed hard that the seat would fall out from under me and I’d get sucked into a black hole.
“Is there anyone here who has not taken the Parasitology prereq?”
Oh, God. Just kill me already.
I was the only one in the class who raised a mildly shaky hand.
Again, those eyes fell on me. Hard.
“Name?”
“Lilia. Vespertine. Sir.”
“See me after class, Miss Vespertine.”
My first see-me-after-class since freshman year of high school.
“This class covers topics rooted in ongoing and privately-owned research at this university, meaning you are not permitted to discuss whatever is covered outside of this institution. If anyone feels a sense of opposition?” He pointed to the left of him. “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass.”
Jesus, I’d had some abrasive professors before, but this guy took the cake.
“You should’ve all signed the non-disclosure agreement online during orientation. Is there anyone who didn’t?” he asked, once more raising my blood pressure.
Freaking hell, fate must’ve been out to get me, because again, I raised a shaky hand, and his gaze left me feeling like I’d been raked over hot coals.
On an obviously frustrated huff, he twisted toward his bag on the desk and pulled out a paper, which he handed off to Ross, who handed it to the brunette in front of me. Wearing a smirk, she handed it over.
At the top of the page, in bold print beneath the Dracadian logo, were the words NON-DISCLOSURE. An entire page of smaller print followed, but I didn’t even bother to read it before I signed it, not with the entire class silent while Bramwell waited with arms crossed.
I handed the paper back to the brunette, who handed it to Ross, who handed it off to Bramwell. I could’ve just signed my soul away to the guy and I didn’t care, so long as the class stopped looking at me like the fly who shat on their birthday cake.
After a look of disapproval, followed by a brief glance at the paper, he placed it on his desk and finally resumed his lecture.
“The most important function of a parasite is to secure its transmission to the next host.” The way he paced back and forth across the room, his voice carrying an intense inflection, kept me riveted, as I jotted as many words as I could into a simple Word doc.
“Is anyone familiar with mind-hijacking?”
“I thought this was parasitology, not MK-Ultra conspiracies class,” some joker from the back of the room answered, earning a few clipped chuckles.
Bramwell didn’t so much as crack a smile, only offering that deadly gaze for an uncomfortable minute, before he resumed his pacing again.
“ Paragordius varius , otherwise known as the horsehair worm, is an aquatic parasite that has, to its misfortune, chosen the common cricket as a host. As you may or may not know, crickets, as a general rule, avoid water. However, this clever worm releases a chemical that confuses the cricket, causing it to commit suicide by drowning. Once submerged, the worm makes its escape. If the cricket is lucky enough, it won’t drown before the worm emerges, but often, that is not the case. ”
“Jesus,” Spencer muttered beside me. “Doctor Death kicking things off on a morbid note.”
“Another example. The female jewel wasp makes a practical nursery for her young out of a cockroach, by first attacking the roach’s front legs with a toxin.
It then attacks the head, leading the senseless roach to its burrow like a lost puppy.
There, it lays its eggs and entombs the two of them together.
The larvae consume the cockroach from the inside and eventually emerge as adults.
” He paused his pacing, hands still clasped behind his back, the stance opening the unbuttoned top of his shirt even wider and allowing just enough of a peek of the deep grooves there.
“Parasitic mind control is an emerging science, not yet well understood. It is a complex and fascinating field of study. For the next sixteen weeks, you will be submerged, much like our unwitting cricket, in a wealth of little-known information about various species of parasites. I recommend you pay close attention to the syllabus and keep up with the reading.”
Something in the way he spoke, the passion I could literally feel infused into every word, sent a shudder of excitement through me.
The man lived and breathed science–that much I could tell.
When the class ended, I found myself looking at the clock in disbelief.
An entire hour had slipped by in what felt like minutes, as I’d sat completely enthralled by the man and the ease with which he relayed information, as if he were talking of something so benign as the weather.
As the class packed up and exited, my stomach knotted in tight bows of anxiety at the thought of having to talk to him one on one.
I’d wanted the opportunity to pick his brain sometime, but something told me he wasn’t happy about my presence in his class.
“Professor Bramwell, you wanted to see me?”
His assistant, Ross, shot me a quick glance as he passed behind him toward the exit, but Bramwell didn’t bother to take those cognac eyes off of me.
And just like that, I was completely alone with the one they called Doctor Death.
“Miss Vespertine, I understand you’re new to Dracadia.”
“Yes, I’m technically a sophomore, but–”
“Allow me to acquaint you with my teaching style, since you managed to skip the prerequisite.” From the top of his collar, a small bit of his skin appeared to be contracted and discolored.
A gruesome scar that I guessed must’ve marked the acid attack Mel had told me about.
Unless that was just a story she’d made up.
“I don’t like interruptions. This isn’t a fuck around class.
Know that I’ve failed more students than I’ve passed. ”
“With all due respect, I believe that’s the failure of the one teaching.”
His jaw twitched as if he were gnashing my words between his teeth to spit back in my face. “I also don’t appreciate underclassmen with smart mouths.”
“My apologies. Sir.”
“Your being here is a mistake. Let’s not make it an egregious one. Keep up with the reading. Attend the recitations.”
“I will.”
He made a grumbly humph in his throat, like he doubted me, and breaking his staring, he shoved his book and notes into his bag, along with my signed NDA, unavoidably drawing my attention to the map of veins in his forearm where he’d rolled his sleeves up.
And the fact that he didn’t have a wedding band.
Stop, damn it.
I wanted to ask him more about the parasites. Perhaps get on his good side with what small bit of knowledge I had on the one for which he’d been named an expert, but my throat clogged, my tongue heavy in my mouth.
Instead, I exited the auditorium to find Spencer waiting outside. Oddly enough, I felt relieved to see him after such an intense encounter. My lips burned from having bitten the shit out of them the whole time.
“All good?”
I pulled my bag up onto my shoulder. “Were you expecting otherwise?”
“Alone time with Doctor Death? I don’t know.”
I headed in the direction of my next class, seemingly in the same direction Spencer was headed, from the way he kept in step. “You call him that because he was supposedly involved in some other student’s disappearance?”
“Yeah. She dated a buddy of mine. He’s expelled now.”
“Ah. The one who splashed sulfuric acid on him.”
Spencer lips flattened. “You heard the story already.”
“Yeah. I think I found that bit less impressive than the rumor.”
“He wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. But Jenny’s disappearance fucked with his head.”
I slowed to a stop, just outside of the building of my writing exposition class. “What evidence led everyone to believe Bramwell had anything to do with it?”
Spencer stuffed his hands into his pockets and shrugged. “Cameras caught her leaving out some back door of his lab, the night she went missing.”
“And you don’t think that makes the boyfriend a suspect?”
“He was pissed, for sure. He always thought there was something going on between them, for some reason. But I talked him down that night.”
I playfully rolled my eyes at that. “So, you’re the campus knight in shining armor.”
Rubbing the back of his neck, he smiled in a way that seemed flirtatious. “Something like that.”
I’d been the yolk of nasty rumors my entire high school career.
I hated gossip–loathed the way something could spread like a wildfire with no merit, or evidence.
No doubt, Professor Bramwell was a bona fide asshole with a cherry on top, but I decided to reserve judgment before flat out calling him a murderer.
“Well, look. I appreciate your concern. But I like to give people the benefit of doubt before grabbing the nearest pitchfork.”
“No disrespect. I just felt compelled to give you a heads up, is all.”
“I appreciate it. If you’ll excuse me, I need to head back to my next class.”
With a nod, he stepped aside and headed off in the opposite direction.