Chapter 7 #2
The thought stayed with me even as I returned to work later that night.
I preferred working after hours because there was no one around to bother me.
The campus was quiet when I pushed open the door to my lab.
But at a closer look, I realized something was amiss.
A sense of intrusion settled on me when shadows played tricks under the hazy lighting.
My pulse quickened, not from fear but from the adrenaline of an unexpected variable in my controlled environment.
It was then that I saw the mysterious figure. The intruder didn’t notice me approaching, engrossed in their clandestine task. Their movements were precise, not the frantic actions of a thief but something else. As I edged closer, the faint light from the hallway illuminated a feminine figure.
My eyes narrowed as she stepped toward the supply closet.
She pulled something out of her bag with meticulous care, though I couldn’t see what it was from this angle.
Her delicate hands moved through the shelves with an unfamiliar certainty.
Her breath hitched when she sensed my looming form behind her, and she turned just as I grabbed her elbow.
“Caught you, you little thief—” I faltered mid-thought when I saw the face of the culprit.
Rose.
Why did it have to be her?
A deer in headlights, little Bambi stared at me with comically round eyes. She held perfectly still. The moonlight cast shadows across her face, making it difficult to discern her expression.
Extending my hand, I reached for the wall switch to turn on the lights.
She was in the same ivory blouse from earlier, only now I realized it was intentionally conservative and loose, the sleeves reaching her wrist and the collar sitting high to cover her neck.
The jeans were classic blue denim, fitted but not tight.
“What are you doing here?” My voice was clipped.
Her face paled like she had seen a ghost. Demanding an answer from her was equivalent to a death sentence, I realized. Instead of waiting for her to respond, I snatched the bag she held tightly in her fist.
My fingers brushed against hers briefly.
It was the only time she dared to meet my gaze.
She looked me dead in the eye as if trying to dissect me.
The unexpected intensity from little Rose Ambani made me pause.
She retracted her fingers—and gaze—so fast I wondered whether I had imagined the fierce exchange.
The fleeting touch and eye contact spoke volumes, leaving me as speechless as her.
Did she have an aversion to touch and eye contact? Something about how she evaded my touch didn’t sit well with me.
“What’s this?” I asked sharply. The unyielding words echoed through the empty lab, a sound that generally sent shivers down my assistants’ spines.
Her almond eyes were full of answers, lips pursing. It seemed she wanted to say something but lost her bravado at the last second.
If it had been anyone else who broke into my lab, they would have been expelled by now. But her innocent features did something unexpected, they made me feel responsible for her. My frosty exterior softened the longer I looked at her.
I opened the brown bag and pulled out the large vial inside it. “PMU?” I asked, forcing myself to take a lighter tone.
She nodded, looking down at her feet. Rose couldn’t meet my gaze or speak when she was scared half to death, though I had hoped lowering my voice would help.
It didn’t. She was tense and rigid, as if she were on the verge of a heart attack.
It seemed she could only speak at times. Was it selective mutism?
Smoothing my menacing glare—so I didn’t scare her to death—I tried again, careful to keep my voice even. “Where did you find PMU? It’s extremely rare.”
Still, she said nothing. The only sound in the lab was the low hum of the fridge and the lab equipment in the background.
Perhaps it was my body language.
I lowered the bag and widened my arms for an open stance. “Were you restocking the supplies?” I asked quietly.
Another nod.
“You could’ve brought it to the next class. How would I have known it was you who restocked the PMU?”
She didn’t nod this time and hung her head, waiting for me to hand out a vile punishment for doing the right thing.
It was the first capable thing someone in my class had done. She tracked down an impossible-to-find product and brought more than what her friend had destroyed. Why didn’t she want credit for restocking the supply, especially since she took the fall for someone else?
Since Rose refused to speak, I had to guess. The most likely answer was that Rose wanted to avoid attention at all costs.
For once, I craved to hear someone’s voice and their reasons for doing things, but she was dead silent. It made me want to push her buttons. “How did you get those scars on your stomach?”
The question landed the necessary shock value. She gasped, her expression a mix of surprise and uncertainty. The vulnerability on her face struggled with the first words she uttered today. “How do you know about my scars?”
Her lips had moved slowly and hesitantly, and the words took a few seconds to register. I stared at her mouth, disbelieving that she spoke. Her voice was husky, and because she rarely spoke, it sounded priceless. It made her delicate features softer.
The astonishment had eradicated her fear long enough to speak and make eye contact. I took full advantage of it to keep the momentum going.
“I saw them today by accident. Are there others on your body or just your stomach?” I nodded at the conservative shirt she was wearing.
Her hand flew protectively to her collar, trying to conceal more than what the shirt already hid. The inappropriate question baffled her into answering. “No. Only on my abdomen,” she replied defensively, her hoarse voice music to my ears.
With all the patience I could muster, I pressed, “How did you get them?”
“I was stabbed multiple times when I was a kid.” She spoke without an ounce of emotion, as if reciting her schedule for the week. There was no anger over the fact that someone had stabbed her numerous times. No sadness. Nothing. She was dead inside.
Her innocence, naivety, and doe-brown eyes dispersed the thoughts. “Do you know who did it?”
She shook her head.
I continued the interrogation because she clearly wouldn’t contribute anything to the conversation. “What’s the long-term care plan for the scars?”
“Huh?”
“If this happened a while ago, your doctors must have given you a care plan to follow.”
She looked at me like she had no idea what I was talking about.
Rose’s family rivaled ours in wealth. Her doctors would’ve provided her with alternate options, long-term care plans, and monthly follow-ups.
Most girls in our circle would have visited plastic surgeons by now to have the scars removed, though it wouldn’t be my recommendation.
The superficial scars couldn’t compare to recovering from surgery.
Rose chose practicality over vanity by covering them up instead of putting herself through unnecessary pain.
I didn’t know any other girl who would have selected this route if another option were readily available to them.
The girl stunned me at every turn, and I hated it.
It was too soon to meddle in her affairs, but I did it anyway. “Ask your family whether the doctors assigned you a care plan and bring it to me tomorrow.”
She nodded tentatively and took that as her permission to flee.