Everyone looked around, unsure what to do, until I began packing my things. That started a chain reaction, and noise filled the room as students crammed their laptops into their bags and moved to leave.
After our dismissal, Cyrus stood next to Dr. Z’s podium, and they spoke in low voices with a lot of nodding and a few smiles.
Oh, hell no. I stood up, grabbed my bag, and walked down the steps, standing in the space next to Cyrus.
“Cyrus has just returned from a summer in Mali,” Dr. Z said, smiling.
“Oh?” I said with cold eyes. “You have family there?”
“No,” Cyrus said flatly.
He didn’t offer further explanation, so I stared at him until he became uncomfortable and looked away. That was my very favorite thing to do to everyone.
“Cyrus is researching the Dogon tribe. Very interesting,” Dr. Z said. “He’s the third member of our team.”
“What?” I said the word louder than I’d meant and in a tone high enough to be embarrassing.
Cyrus nodded once to us both, and then he was gone.
“Are you replacing me?” I asked, my heart pounding. My assistant job was connected to my scholarship. If Cyrus stole it from me, I could be in real danger of losing that money. It was too late to find a student position that wasn’t already taken.
“Of course not. You saw the data I sent. You’ll never have time for anything else if I don’t add someone to the team.”
“I can do it,” I said, only feeling a tiny bit relieved. “You know I don’t go home for the holidays. I don’t mind working weekends.”
Dr. Z smiled. “Rory, I know you don’t mind working weekends, but you should.”
He walked out of the classroom, leaving me among his weird sculptures and artifacts. None of it made sense. Dr. Z had always been careful. I couldn’t imagine he would invite someone he didn’t trust into his precious laboratory. Something about Cyrus felt off, but he didn’t seem dangerous or untrustworthy. If the professor had been considering Cyrus as just a third team member, he would have mentioned it before today. The only explanation for my exclusion from this news was that he was planning to replace me. What was more, hastily inviting a new student into his lab wasn’t just uncharacteristic. It was troubling.
My eyes were all over the place, looking at a different inanimate object with every thought. I couldn’t lose my position as Dr. Zorba’s assistant. Everything was riding on it.
The room grew darker, bringing my attention to the large windows. The clouds outside were gray. At this time of year, the weather was more likely to bring in a cold front than a storm. The wind began to blow the few leaves that had just started to fall from the huge oak trees. I pulled one of several tubes of lip balm from my jacket pocket and ran it over my lips. I loved fall up until the night I died. Now, it just seemed ominous.
Clenching my teeth with determination, I lifted my bag and swung it over my shoulder. I refused to lose my assistant position with Dr. Z. Cyrus could take his thought-provoking, eloquently worded questions and shove them up his ass.
Chapter Two
WATER? CHECK. MUFFIN? CHECK. Even handsomer in his black-rimmed glasses, the spot-stealer sitting at the table to my left, working his ass off?
I sighed. Check.
We’d been in the basement of the Fitzgerald Building for two hours and hadn’t spoken. The boring rock was in a glass case on the other side of Cyrus, and he was simultaneously looking through a microscope and typing his data into the computer.
I pulled my mouth to the side. I couldn’t type and study matter in a microscope at the same time. That’s okay. I’ll learn how.
Just once, I’d caught him glancing at me. His golden eyes returned to the microscope so quickly that I thought it was my imagination. At least he didn’t catch the other dozen or so times I’d glanced at him.
My fingernails were clicking against the keyboard. I’m going to have to cut them tonight. It’s not like they’re manicured or anything anyway.
I chewed off another hangnail, spit it onto the cement floor, and then took a bite of my pathetic dinner. Muffin crumbs fell onto the table. Cyrus hadn’t eaten or sipped a single drop of coffee since he arrived. I set down the mangled mess of bread barely contained in its paper holder.
Focusing on how to compete with perfection over there instead of entering the numbers correctly was going to lose me my spot. I snapped out of it and began typing data as if a fire were engulfing the room and I had to finish to live.
At midnight, Cyrus packed his things, and without saying a word, he walked out of the room and shut the door behind him.
“Yes!” I yelled to no one and lifted both fists in the air. Day one, and I’d beaten him. I was going to stay at least another hour, making sure to tell Dr. Z the next day that I stayed later than Cargo Pants.
Then, I realized it was super quiet without Cyrus’s clicking and shifting, and being in the basement alone was actually kind of creepy. But it didn’t matter. I was going to stay an hour after Cyrus. An hour was a respectable amount of time to report.
At one a.m., I yawned, cracked my knuckles, and packed my things. There was an elevator with a set of stairs on each side, which I preferred. I had an aversion to elevators, especially alone and at night. That was where I’d met my killers.
After climbing the stairs and pushing through both sets of glass doors out to the front of the building, I noticed a group of students walking and then another group. Scanning the area, I saw that many students were heading in the same destination, and feeling like a lemming, I joined the line.
The group led me five blocks off campus to an old building, down the stairs, and through a door. The sounds and smells were overwhelming. It was a rave, the fake kind with sorority girls and wannabe think-tank members. In the two years since I’d moved east to Kempton, I’d stayed away from raves, parties, rallies, underground fights, and people in general. Yet, here I was, for no particular reason, breathing in heavy smoke, stepping in sticky god-knows-what, and allowing the Top 40 to violate my eardrums.
I turned on my heels and shoved open the door to leave, slamming it right into Benji Reynolds’s nose.
“Cheese and rice!” he yelled, holding his face and bending over at the same time. Blood began to seep between his fingers.
“Damn it, Benji!” I said, grabbing his sleeve and pulling him across the room.
A line was formed on the far side of the room. At this type of party, that meant a restroom or keg was close. So, I took my chances and shoved past everyone.