I’m still glowing with happiness as I assemble the materials needed to replicate the successful trial for the antidote- minus the final, key ingredient, of course. It’s time to put on a little show under the scrutiny of the lab cameras.
Hugo has left his lab coat draped over my work station, a silent and annoying reminder that I’m never free of him. I hope the sabotage my father and Lucas are wreaking is making himsuffer.And making him distracted, because a good look at my notes will make it clear what kind of progress I’ve been making.
Going back and forth to the supply closet gives me the chance to create a precious vial of the antidote. Enough to replicate it even if I canna download and steal the formula this time.
Now, all I need… is Lucas. Charging over the horizon in his black tactical suit, guns blazing.
Instead, I get fecking Hugo.
“Surprise,ma chère!” Strolling into the lab, he pulls on his lab coat. “My business, it seems, was not so dire after all. Certainly not as important as our breakthrough.”
That degenerate corned beef face syrup-wearing wankstain.
I was thinking I’d have at least two or three Hugo-free days. As he beams happily at me, I see the darkness spread through his eyes, like ink swirling in water.
He never planned to leave. He set me up. There was no question in his mind that I would finally create that antidote without him breathing over my shoulder. My only hope is that he dinnae know I already did.
Forcing a smile, I lay out all my ingredients, precisely in the right order. The equipment is set. Smoothing back my hair, I nod to him. “This is it, Hugo. This is the one.”
I take my time, I double-check everything, I move so slowly that he’s nearly dancing with impatience as we get to the final step.
The mixture is a bleary blue gray. The computer model spirals down into nothing.
“Putain de fils de pute, bâtard !Goddamn sonof a bitch bastard!” Hugo kicks a stool, sending it flying across the room. “How would this not work! Youstupidgirl!”
Furiously, he yanks his package of nicotine patches out of the pocket of his lab coat and slaps one on his arm.
“I’m sorry, Hugo.” I dinnae have to put a tremor in my voice, it’s already there. “I’ve been through these steps a thousand times now. It’s no exaggeration, this test was number one thousand one.”
His fists clench, face so red that I’m praying he’s having a heart attack. “You will examine your notes. You will find your error. We will speak at dinner and youwillhave my antidote. Are we clear?”
I manage a short, jerky nod before he storms out.
The afternoon drags on as I move through the lab, checking notes, reassessing computer models I’ve watched a million times. My hand keeps touching the bumpy, raised scar on my leg, where Hugo tore out my tracker, my lifeline to Lucas. I have the full formula for C-1161. Most crucially, I have the precious antidote. I could recreate it in my sleep.
What I dinnae have is a way out of thisnightmare bunker. Lucas can find me anywhere, I believe this, but it will take time. Inside this mountain, I’m just as helpless as one of the glowing, sightless worms that make their way over the rock ceiling in the supply room.
Édouard appears with his usual expression of existential despair. “Master Hugo wishes to have you dress for dinner,mademoiselle.”
Followed by six guards, he escorts me back to my room. “How are ye enjoying the hell of subterranean life, Édouard?”
His sigh is redolent with suffering. “My life’s purpose is to serve.”
“Of all the things you’ve said to me, that has to be the most dispiriting, and we’ve had some deeply bleak conversations.” We stop at my bedroom door, the guards hovering. “Have ye seen the video?”
“Which video,mademoiselle?”
“The results of the poison. How it swept through twenty-five people in minutes. Can ye imagine their suffering? A father, perhaps, watching his son die first?”
I’m so feckingangry.
Not at Édouard, exactly. At everyone, everything buried inside this fecking mountain with me.
His mournful gaze holds mine. “There is a newgown for dinner. I’ve put it on your bed.”
I’ve learned by now that of course, there’s surveillance cameras in my bedroom, in my closet. I canna find a trace of one in the bathroom, which I suspect speaks more to Hugo’s fastidious nature than anything else. Watching me pee is too much for him.
So, I dress in there, putting on the required black gown, heavy with glittering jet-colored beads and an irritatingly long train. There’s no pocket for the glass tube holding the antidote, the bodice is too tight to slip it in my bra.
