My shiny new attorney rolled his eyes and glanced back at me.
“Don’t say another word. You’re not under arrest. We’re leaving,” he snapped at me.
“Uhm…” I glanced at the angry detectives before shrugging sheepishly. “Guess I gotta go…” I mumbled, getting shakily to my feet.
Donnovan moved back to let me slip past him, and the detective made one last weak attempt to get me to stay.
“He’s not under arrest yet, but if he walks out that door…”
Mr. Donnovan let out an indignant huff. “Then you’ll need to explain to a judge why you detained someone who was free to go. Keep walking, Mr. Murphy. There’s a car waiting for us out front.”
“Yes, sir…” I mumbled, staring down at my Vans as I scurried through the bright, noisy precinct toward the glass sliding doors that led out into the street.
Just as Mr. Donnovanhad said, there was a black, shiny N-Car with blacked-out tinted windows waiting for me just outside.
“After you, Mr. Murphy,” he said, gesturing for me to go ahead of him.
I glanced back at him, biting my lower lip briefly before climbing in.
I was immediately hit with the strangely familiar scent of saffron and cedar cologne. I frowned, wondering why the smell was so familiar, before blinking up to find there was another man waiting for me in the N-car.
He was much younger than Attorney Daniel Donnovan, who climbed in silently behind me and quickly made himself comfortable in one of the car’s expensive leather benches that wrapped around the interior.
“Uhh…” I stammered, staring at the devastatingly attractive man in his navy blue suit, brown DIOR derbys, and five-hundred-dollar haircut.
“Milo, welcome. Please, have a seat. Make yourself comfortable. I’m sorry it took us so long to learn you had been detained. I had…connectivityissues,” the man said. His tone was pleasant, but his professionally whitened smile seemed a little tight.
“Uhm… i-it’s not a problem?” I said, feeling overwhelmed, tired, and probably still a little bit in shock over everything I’d been through in the last few hours.
“I’m sure you’re wondering who I am?” the man asked. He paused, watching me intently with ice blue eyes, as if he were truly curious if he needed an introduction.
If what The Forgotten had said earlier was true, then this was very likely Sebastian Stevens, Neurovance’s CMO. Though, The Forgotten hadn’t told me whether or not I was supposed to let on that Iknewthat.
The little black external war drive he had given me felt like it was burning a hole in my pocket. Knowing that he wanted me to implant myself as some kind of mole for a corporate espionage scheme, I figured playing dumb was probably in my best interest.
“N-no. Sorry,” I stammered, pushing my large, round glasses further up my nose.
The tightness around the man’s eyes seemed to loosen, and his smile warmed.
“Ah, not to worry. I’m Sebastian, Sebastian Stevens. So great to finally meet you. I’ve been trying to get Melanie to convince you to come in for an interview since I read your application essay.”
The second Melanie’s name rolled through the car, a flashback of watching her brains explode out the back of her skull slammed into me, and my breath caught in my throat.
“Milo?” the man asked, as my eyes welled with tears, and I began to shake.
“Shit—Daniel—see if there’s any Neuro-van in the glove compartment,” Sebastian snapped at the lawyer before sliding down the leather bench of the car to settle next to me. “You’re having a panic attack, Milo. Shit, I’m sorry. You’ve been through a lot. I shouldn’t have just jumped in like that… Here…”
He dropped a small white pill into my hand and a bottle of water into the other.
“Take this, it’s just the Neurovance brand of Lorazepam. It’ll help you calm down, then we can talk more about what happened to Melanie and your mother.”
I was gasping against the vacuum in my chest, doing my best to swallow the anti-anxiety medication Sebastian had given me.
He reached out as if he wanted to touch me, but thought better of it and slid slightly farther away. Finding the motion strange, I peeked up at him through my lashes to find he was frowning down at me with genuine concern on his face.
His cologne was still a warm and familiar scent. The memory of where I’d smelt it before felt elusive. I couldn’t tell if it was comforting or unnerving.
I pressed my head between my knees and forced myself to breathe through the vacuum in my chest as I waited for the medication to kick in, hoping that wherever Sebastian was taking me was safer than where I’d come from.
