Because someone killed him and I reanimated him and kissed him, and— Oliver pressed the heel of his hand into his forehead, wishing he could keep the panic at bay but knowing he couldn’t. Oh god. He kissed a dead man. He kissed someone he reanimated who would be dead by the end of the week. He had all these rules and boundaries for a reason, and he had thrown them all out the window. He had been so foolish.
“Ol? Ol, are you all right?”
Oliver shook his head, biting down on his lip to keep the mutinous words from escaping. Gwen knew. Gwen and a handful of others were the only ones who knew what he was, and she hadn’t treated him differently. Then again, that was when she thought he reanimated the people in his lab for a moment before letting them go. He was going to lose his job, Felipe, and his only friend in the span of a week.
“He couldn’t have been that bad in bed,” she said, though the lightness in her voice rang false.
“No. I don’t know,” Oliver choked out.
“Do you want to talk about it? I can be the listener this time.”
“Something happened, Gwen. Something bad, with him, and then with me, and you’re going to hate me when you find out.”
“I highly doubt I’m going to hate you, Oliver Barlow.”
The story tumbled out of him in a rush of half-formed sentences and asides. He wasn’t even sure how much sense he made as he was too focused on trying not to sob in front of her and fall into complete incoherence. Letting his head fall onto the laboratory table when he finished, Oliver shut his eyes and struggled to ignore the thickness in his throat.
That familiar twinge of sadness edged her voice. “Oh, Oliver, I’m so sorry. Can I touch you?”
He thought about it for a second and sighed. “Yes.”
Gwen’s hand swept up and down his back in firm strokes. “Anything you need?”
“To not lose control again.”
“I think that was completely warranted given the situation. Are you okay for me to leave you for a few minutes?”
Oliver nodded but didn’t raise his head. Her footsteps retreated and the lock snicked in place behind him. He wasn’t sure how long he sat with his eyes closed and his head pressed against the cool table, but eventually, he heard her footsteps in the hall and the door opened with the smell of bacon and eggs. Picking his head up, Oliver watched Gwen levitate the trays to the table. His stomach growled. After years of having breakfast together, she knew he liked his eggs loose, his bacon nearly burnt, and his toast barely toasted. Just as he knew she hated eggs and ate pancakes and bacon dipped in marmalade, though she would deny she did it.
“Thank you,” he said softly as she slid the tray in front of him. Part of him didn’t want to eat, but he knew he would feel worse if he didn’t. As he brought a forkful of eggs to his lips, someone knocked heavily on the laboratory door and tried the knob. Before he could pull himself together and stand up, Gwen put her hand on his shoulder.
“I got it.”
For once, Oliver didn’t try to fight her.
***
Felipe had taken thestairs down to the basement laboratory two at a time, heedless of who saw him stop at every floor to look for Oliver. He had felt Oliver pluck the tether several times earlier as he lay in bed waiting for the inevitable snap, but Oliver kept his word and that never happened. It wasn’t until Felipe was getting dressed and felt something different that he grew worried. Back when he and Louisa were still in California at the whims of their parents, he had had a horrible attack of nerves. He remembered the feeling of not being able to breathe and the crushing endlessness of it in the moment, and this felt like that overwhelming rush of emotion but at a distance. Felipe stopped with his jacket halfway on to see if he was having palpitations or sweats only to confirm he was fine. Distress, white-hot and unavoidable tightened its grip on his chest again. Then, nothing. Felipe sat on the bed and waited for Oliver to return, absently rubbing his chest. The sensations were like nothing he had felt before, though being strangled had come close.
The tether.That was when Felipe ran. All he could picture was the killer cornering Oliver in his lab, trying to choke the life from him. And Felipe had done nothing to stop it. At the laboratory door, he tried the knob, knowing it would be locked, and bit back the urge to immediately kick it down. He gave a sharp warning knock, but on the count of ten, he would kick it in if no one came. Felipe had gotten to five when Gwen Jones opened the door. She calmly looked him up and down, her brows knit as if trying to see what was different about him. So Oliver had told her.
“Is Oliver down here?” he asked, craning his neck to see into the laboratory beyond the antechamber door behind her. When Miss Jones gave him a raised brow, he cleared his throat and added, “He’s been gone a while. I wanted to make sure he’s all right.”
“He is.”
Adrenaline still hummed through his veins, but he managed to grasp that Oliver was not being murdered. Her hand shot out to block off the threshold when he moved to barge in. As she stepped in his way, Felipe was finally able to spot Oliver. He sat hunched over his plate with his back to the door in his shirt and waistcoat. One hand supported his head while the other toyed listlessly with a piece of bacon. That didn’t bode well.
“He doesn’t look all right.”
Her expression flickered between defensiveness and understanding, but she didn’t move from the doorway. Raising her voice loud enough that Oliver could hear her, she pointedly said, “Oliver is okay. He just needs a few minutes. You should go eat breakfast and come back when you’re done.”
“At least tell me if he’s hurt.”
“He isn’t.” Miss Jones sighed. “Look, he needs a little time and quiet to calm down. You have my word he’s safe. Just go eat breakfast in the dining room. And take your time.”
***
Galvan’s voice rumbledfrom the anteroom followed by a murmur from Gwen. Fiddling with a piece of bacon, Oliver kept his eyes on his plate. He didn’t want Felipe to see him like this again. He already probably thought him a mess; he didn’t need him to know how much of a disaster he truly was. Gwen’s voice drifted across the room as if she purposely spoke loud enough for him to hear.
