CHAPTER 45 #3
He lowered his hand, flexing his fingers. “It’s grown on me.”
“You’ve suffered with that your whole life?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t need your pity, Miss Vespertine.” His voice hardened, the space between us colder, all of a sudden. “If you’d be so kind as to clean up the broken glass, I’d appreciate it. Be careful not to cut yourself.”
“Of course.”
For the next two hours, I busied myself with menial lab tasks–autoclaving, sterilizing new agar solution, and catching the occasional glance from Professor Bramwell, like the night at the gala–stolen glances amounting to nothing, really.
Nothing but curiosity. I thought back to the evening before, when he’d told me that, under different circumstances, he’d have pursued me.
Whatever had compelled him to confess that must’ve slinked back into its shell and covered itself up with a blanket.
As I wiped down the fume hood, I noticed a tray of tubes carrying a strange purple and black solution.
Frowning, I turned my head to the side, reading the vertical label on the test tubes–NyxVar2.
10, NyxVar2.12, NyxVar2.15. Beneath that was Noctisoma toxin and the date.
Pretending as if I was scrubbing hard at something, I studied the strange fluid inside, the almost marbled mixture of purple and black that must’ve been what he planned to inject into the moths.
At the end of my shift, Doctor Bramwell walked me to the bus stop, wordless.
Shoulders bunched, gazed glued to the ground, he seemed preoccupied.
And I supposed I was too tired to bombard him with questions, so the two of us walked in silence.
Just like the last time, he watched me from a distance, until I caught the flicker of bus lights coming up over the hill, and I waved him on.
Hands stuffed in his pockets, he turned around and headed back toward his lab.
Drops of rain hit my arm, and when I tipped my head back, cold sprinkles dotted my face. Perfect. Fortunately, the bus was close, because the longer I stood there, the faster the drops fell. Faster. Faster.
When the bus finally reached me, the rain had picked up intensity, pattering hard against the sidewalk. It was then I realized I’d left my purse and my ID back at the lab.
Shit! Shit!
I’d need it to get into my dorm.
Shit, shit!
Groaning, I waved the bus driver on, and as the downpour assaulted me along the way, striking my skin like dissolving bullets, I jogged my ass back toward the laboratory until I reached the incinerator room, where I shook off the freezing water still clinging to my skin.
Shivering, I made my way down the frigid cadaver tunnel, clenching my teeth to keep them from chattering.
I’d worn a skirt that day, thinking I’d beat the forecasted rain for the evening.
It was my luck to have to walk in it, anyway.
There was no sign of Professor Bramwell when I entered the autopsy room and strode toward the hooks holding the lab coats. As I approached, I noticed something sticking up from the pocket of my lab coat. A note.
I opened it to find a small plastic card with the Dragon’s Lair coffee shop logo on it. The attached paper simply said: Now you can buy coffee whenever you like. –B
It was a yearly pass, one he must’ve purchased for himself, and at the echoes of my self-wallowing earlier, I winced.
It wasn’t like me, at all, to be so pathetically self-deprecating, but I was tired.
Stressed. Confused. Angry. A whole host of emotions that made the perfect storm.
Even then, I felt kind of stupid for dumping all of that on him.
I unhooked my coat to find my purse hidden beneath it, and I nabbed it, just then remembering the dreaded walk I’d have to make back to my dorm, seeing as the last pick up of the night had already come and gone.
I’d be a sopping mess and, with my luck, would end up with a horrible pneumonia, proving my mother right all those years.
A sound reached my ears–loud, pained, brimming with suffering. A chill skated up my spine, the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end.
It arrived again, that time carrying a distinct masculine pitch that I recognized. Bramwell?
He could’ve been having another attack.
Without too much contemplation, I punched the keypad code and dashed through the door, into the lab.
I yanked my phone, ready to make a call in the event that his heart had suffered the attack that time.
Eyes scanning the candlelit space, I caught sight of the glass dome, where Patroclus and Achilles fluttered around inside.
Flying? Though my head begged to tease out the possibility of such a thing, it was only a brief distraction in my otherwise cursory search, and I kept on through the other set of doors, toward Bramwell’s office.
I slowed my steps on hearing the sounds of quiet moaning and peeked into his office.
He sat at the desk, turned toward his bookshelves, shirtless, his muscles glistening with sweat, a tourniquet wrapped just below his bulging bicep.
I trailed my gaze to the tray of test tubes in front of him, the purple marbly tubes that I’d seen earlier under the hood. Beside them lay a syringe.
Unless I was mistaken, those were the test tubes labeled NyxVar. The Noctisoma toxin. Had he injected them into himself ?
Jarred with disbelief, I stood paralyzed, watching him writhe in his chair, grunting and moaning, as I presumed the toxin worked its way through his body. My phone slipped out of my hands, clattering to the floor.
Shit. Shit!
Slapping a hand to my mouth, I swiped it up and backed myself away.
As I heard him moving about, undoubtedly getting up out of his chair, I turned to the nearest door beside me and ducked inside.
Footsteps approached, and in a panic, I stumbled through the dark room, until I felt a cold metal surface beneath my fingertips and slid my hand over a latch.
With a yank, I swung it open and shut myself inside.
Through the barrier, I heard the other door creak open. Footsteps.
I bit my lip, praying he wouldn’t find me there. Given how staunchly he protected his privacy, who knew how he’d react if he suspected I’d seen him?
The footsteps retreated, and I exhaled a jittery breath.
When I reached for the latch to open the door, though, it wouldn’t budge. Oh, no. No, no, no.
I wriggled the latch, yanking on it, but to no avail.
A putrid stench assaulted my senses, so repulsive, it sprang tears to my eyes, and I covered my nose with the back of my hand, swallowing back a gag.
Blindly patting the wall, I found a light switch and flipped it on.
A fluorescent tube flickered overhead, and I turned around to find that I had locked myself in what looked to be a smaller autopsy room with only one examination table.
A white sheet covered what I had little doubt was a body beneath.
Muscles quaking, I tiptoed toward it, my heart my heart rioting inside my chest with every step closer, and I peeled back the sheet.
There on the table lay a man with the telling post-autopsy Y-incision stitches, and whose eyeballs had been removed, leaving empty sockets.
Another gag punched the back of my throat, the acids burning as I breathed hard through my nose.
The sight of him sent an icy trickle of fear down my spine, and with a sharp exhale, I threw the sheet back over him to quickly cover him up.
Even without his eyes, something about him looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t quite place why.
And I didn’t care, because the realization that I was stuck in there with him hit me right then.
I ran for the door. No fucking way I was staying all night with a corpse who had no eyeballs. No fucking way! When the door wouldn’t budge again, I pounded. The panic rose up into my throat, and I let out a scream.
Cold tentacles of fear slithered over the back of my neck.
A glance over my shoulder revealed a ghostly figure of the man standing alongside the examination table.
Forehead pressed to the door, I squeezed my eyes shut.
No, no, no. Hysterics commandeered me, and I slammed the heel of my hand against the door.
A sob broke from my chest. “Help me! Somebody, help me!”
The door swung open, and I dove headfirst into the body standing in the doorway.
I wrapped my arms around it, fingers clawing into flesh to keep me rooted there, away from that room and the death it held.
Every muscle in my body convulsed in terror, and I let out a shaky breath, the tears spilling down my cheeks.
At first, he didn’t move, but then strong arms engulfed me, pulling me closer. “Oh, fuck, Lilia. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
I clung to him, letting the fear work its way through me.
The realization that I could’ve been stuck all night in there gnawed at my bones every time I dared to imagine the visual.
It was when I felt the gentle stroke down my damp hair that I glanced up to see Professor Bramwell embracing me, his eyes brimming with remorse.
Remorse that shifted to confusion, as he stroked my hair slower.
Curiosity and trepidation clashed his eyes, and he skated his palm down my cheek, pausing to rub his fingers together. His thumb caressed my bottom lip, and his hand moved to my hair again, where he let a strand slip through his fingers, eyes alight with fascination. “I feel you.”
I stared up at him, the fear inside of me dissolving, and I raised my hand.
He placed his much bigger hand against mine, palm to palm, and curled his fingers around mine, swallowing them. “I feel everything.” He let out a choke of a laugh. “I fucking feel everything!” He whisked me into his arms and spun me around.
My stomach flipped, and a giggle slipped free, in spite of my earlier tears.