A memory surfaces, unbidden. Idris standing too close to the screen, blocking the lower half of the screen as my blood resultspopulated. His gentle deflection. I turn back to the monitor now, pulse quickening, and pull my blood results up.
It only takes a few clicks, but the text swims. Columns smear into pale bands. Numbers refuse to resolve in my vision.
I blink hard, leaning closer, but the screen only blurs further, heat building behind my eyes until it burns.
I can’t see well enough to read, because I realize belatedly that there are tears brimming my eyes.
More images run through my mind in flashes. Blood oozing thick. Cold bodies behind doors.
My eyes shut. Wetness drenches my cheeks. I try to breathe. The images disappear. My grip loosens. The capsule slips free and strikes the desk.
With a displeased sigh, I open my eyes and pick it up. The casing fractures in my pinching fingers, splitting the pill in half. Powder spills across the desk.
Frowning, I try to calm myself. In for four, but my lungs stop when a sweet scent fills them.
Baffled by the fragrance, I hover my fingers over what should be purely the powder of Kys I remade on the desk.
But this scent doesn’t make sense. My formula carries a chemical bitterness.
Thisdoes not.
I remain still, figuring out possibilities. But my mind quickly lands on one conclusion.
Placebo.
Idris has been putting together the capsules. He wouldn’t have replaced mine.
He wouldn’t.
The pressure behind my eyes worsens. My vision blurs again, much more this time. I blink and feel more hot tears run down.
This can’t be right. It’s not possible. I inhale through my nose and catalogue known variables.
Idris has been my most reliable companion. He has regulated my sleep, even my vitals. He’s watched for adverse effects with a diligence that borders on obsessive. My body’s depended on him for stability since the ship. Perhaps even longer than that.
Yet my mind can’t fight the creeping logic. The Kys that Idris gave me issweet. The Kys I formulated myself isbitter.
The thoughts spiral loose in my head. It’s all too much, to the point past overwhelm.
I stumble back from the desk, putting distance between myself and the powder. My feet keep moving back until the broken capsule is merely blurry dots in my teary vision.
Then my back brushes the door behind me. Sound carries through the adjoining wall. I quickly recall Kaye mentioning that the bathroom this room’s attached to is also accessible to Nil and Stan.
Heat floods my systems, one by one. My face, my neck, and then so much lower, right between my inner thighs.
I freeze, processing the sounds they’re making. Breath, broken and strained. The muted impact of skin meeting skin.
A muffled voice through the closed door follows. “Is your good boy doing a good job, babe?” That has to be Stan, his words carry low and rough.
Another voice answers him. “Yes, you sure as hell are.” That’s Nil. I’d know the sound of his from hearing a single syllable.
My curiosity overrides caution. I turn, take hold of the handle, and slowly swing the door open, quiet and careful, only enough to peek.
Heat rolls into the room, thick with steam. My lenses fog from the edges, blurring what I see into color and motion. Light reflects off glass and tile, and even through the fog and steam, it’s unmistakablythem.
With the door open even this little, the sounds carry clearly. Stan’s larger body drives forward, pressing Nil back against the wall of wet tiles. Nil’s long legs are folded between them but spread as Stan pins him there, bodies colliding with intent over and over. Water beads along sculpted skin as they move together.
I’m drawn closer by the need to see. For a brief second, I think Stan turns his head. I think I catch the curve of a smirk aimed in my direction.
