Chapter 190:
Then a heavy, muffled vibration pulsed from the pocket of her white lab coat — a specific, customized notification she had hoped never to hear again.
Her entire body went rigid. Her wrist jerked. Two glass test tubes wobbled violently in her grip.
She shoved them back into the rack with trembling hands and walked quickly toward the storage lockers, stepping into the blind spot of the security cameras. She pulled out her phone. Her fingers shook so badly she could barely unlock the screen.
It was a burner app. Encrypted messages, set to self-destruct. The sender was Alycia. The message was a single line: Noon. Level B3 garage. Come alone, or face the consequences.
A blurred thumbnail image loaded beneath it.
Pixelated, but instantly recognizable. The cold tile floor. The corner of a high school bathroom.
ѕ𝗵a𝗿𝘦 𝘆𝗼𝘂r 𝘁𝗵𝘰𝘶𝗴h𝗍𝘴 𝗈𝗻 𝘨a𝗅𝗇𝗼𝘷𝖾𝘭ѕ.𝗰𝗼𝘮
The naked, humiliating photograph Alycia had taken of her during the worst period of her life. Her deepest and most private nightmare, reduced to a thumbnail.
Abbie’s lungs seized. The oxygen seemed to leave the room entirely. Her stomach lurched, and she pressed her hand hard over her mouth, biting into her own palm to keep silent.
Ten seconds later, the image vanished. The screen went black.
But the damage was complete. A cold sweat had broken out across her entire body.
She stumbled back to her workstation, her mind in chaos. If those photographs were leaked, her mother — who lived with severe psychiatric illness — would not survive the shock.
The heavy laboratory doors swung open.
June walked in, leaning on her ergonomic crutches, her face pale but her eyes sharp and fully alert. She moved to the main console to review the morning data logs and paused directly behind Abbie.
Her brow furrowed.
“Abbie, the decimal point for the inhibitor concentration on the control group is entered incorrectly,” June said. Her voice was calm, but the precision in it cut cleanly through the quiet room. “This error will crash the entire data model.”
Abbie jumped as though she’d been struck. She spun around, and her elbow connected hard with a glass beaker resting at the edge of the counter.
It hit the floor and shattered.
“I’m sorry! Dr. Erickson, I’m so sorry, I’ll clean it up right now!” Abbie dropped to her knees, hands shaking, reaching for the broken glass — and misjudged the angle. A razor-sharp shard drew a clean line across her index finger. Bright red blood welled immediately, dripping onto the white tile.
June reached out and caught Abbie’s wrist, gripping it firmly despite the sharp pull of pain it sent through her injured ankle.
“Stop. Go to the sink and wash that out,” she said.
She watched Abbie cross to the sink, and she watched her face. The unnatural pallor. The hollow, panicked eyes. This was not distraction. This was terror.
“What is wrong with you today?” June asked, her voice dropping into something low and direct. “Are you in some kind of trouble?”
Abbie’s heart hammered. She couldn’t tell the truth — Alycia would destroy her. She needed something real enough to be believed.
.
.
.