My defensive eyes snap back to him and he lets me go, roaming my face and posture with concern.
“What’s the drama?”
“I can’t trust anyone. That’s mydrama.”
His lips thin with his eyes, like he’s vicariously feeling my frustration. “You didn’t trust the mouth that did that to you?”
Why does he care?
“Have a good day.” I try to leave again, but he’s grabbing my arm and moving out in front of me.
Adrenaline bangs on my heart, inducing a rush of fight-or-flight that pulses my entire head.
“Let me show you something, he insists, and gestures toward the back while leaning down, so that I can see the reverence in his eyes.
The combative frenzy blistering my skin has me hesitating, pivoting on my heel to watch where he’s walking off to. But my paralysis is short lived. The suppressed need for clarity has me working my way through the rest of the shelving units, closely monitoring where he’s going.
He slips through black curtains, getting swallowed in noxious orange before the velvet fabric sways back together. I’m still following him… just slowing down to take in the entire back wall of hanging vertebrae.
That… Those are… “Oh, my God,” I inhale.
Is it legal to have and, you know… sell human spines? And whose are they? How does one acquire an entire wall of spinal cords? They’re all completely intact from connection plate to the tailbone… like they were chemically cooked away from meat.
My intuition punches me in the gut, blaring an alarm in my head that something’s not right, that this man isn’t wanting to “show me something.” All the rational and irrational thoughts of what he could do to me and get away with drill through the insistent beep rippling my skin.
I stop, staring at the curtains he vanished through, becoming too lightheaded to see clearly.
He knows my name and schedule. If he wanted to hurt me or stuff my hair into a voodoo doll, he would have already. Right?
Do not go in there.
“Bunny?” he calls out.
Ohhh, shit.
What if he really does want to show me something? What if it’s a pivotal piece that finally smacks me into getting into those files?
Opening my lips to say something, a hand comes over my mouth. The immediate pressure snuffs my yelp, my head getting yanked back and my boots stumbling backward to support my dragging weight.
My eyes water, trying to pry the hand away with a sob tenting my chest. But they’re a lot stronger than me. I’m disappearing down an aisle of skulls before I can muster the courage to scream.
My spine hits the sturdy wood, and I rapidly blink away the glaze over my sight, sharply inhaling through my nose and forcing myself to look at the person that either saved me or has worse plans.
The brown lip gloss and wide, paranoid eyes puncture the terror and drain me with relief, her hand pinned firm against my mouth.
Duse shakes her head, using the horror on her face to keep me quiet.
“Bunny?” he calls out again, his voice clear.
Bending down to see through shelves, Duse grabs my hand, slowly prying her other palm from my lips and gesturing to the opposite end we came from.
This is quickly starting to feel like life or death, so her refusing to break her attention from him jumpstarts the shakes of fear, trying to steadily follow her motion without doing something stupid like falling or knocking something over.
There are antlers and hooves sticking out each way, and my breaths sound too loud in my head, creating this circulating angst of getting caught. I squeeze her hand tighter, curling my quivering lips in and looking out the corner of my eye to her side stepping, her laser focus still directed at the spot we’re walking away from.
She squeezes me back, giving me the reassurance I need to turn the corner and aim for the exit.
Once we’re in clear shot of an escape, she’s ripping my arm out of socket and dragging me through the curtains.
