He sweeps a hand toward his vacated chair. “Would you like my seat?” he offers, mumbling the words with barely concealed annoyance.
The corners of Dread’s mouth curl upward, imitating the Cheshire cat.
He’s evil. Pure evil.
“Why, I’d love to. Thank you for offering.”
He claps a palm on Stanley’s shoulder, who wastes no time flying down the steps to find himself a new seat.
Dread’s presence is suffocating as he sits beside me, his scent clogging my sinuses. I’m convinced hell doesn’t smell like sulfur and brimstone, but amber and sandalwood, an aroma concocted specifically to bring endless torment upon anyone unfortunate enough to inhale it.
My stare bores into my laptop screen, and I bite my tongue, refraining from demanding he leave. After a few more stilted beats of silence, the entire room’s attention on us, Dr. Camry resumes his lecture. Slowly, the rest of the class returns half of their focus to the lesson, though many heads periodically turn in our direction, checking to see if he’s chopped off my head yet, maybe pulled a classic Mike Tyson and bit my ear off.
Instead, he keeps silent. The tension surrounding us is as ominous as an asteroid entering Earth’s orbit. The impending destruction is looming, and it’s not about if it’ll strike, but when.
Soon, people grow bored with the lack of entertainment, and they’re all sucked back into procedures for conducting forensic examinations, though I'm incapable of fully relaxing.
With stiff fingers, I attempt to take notes, but my brain can only comprehend half of Dr. Camry’s words.
Every tiny movement Dread makes, I’m zeroed in and on high alert, expecting each time to be when he finally strikes.
But ten minutes pass, then twenty, and eventually, only fifteen minutes remain. I haven’t absorbed a single word, and my muscles are growing sore from the constant tensing.
I swear to fuck, if I get a hit with a pop quiz on this lecture, I’m goingto riot. Maybe after class, I’ll ask the girl to my right, Mira, for her notes. We don’t speak much, either, but she’s friendly enough, and there have been a few times she shared them if I missed class.
Though right now, she deliberately points her knees away from me, nearly giving me her entire back.
She’s literally giving me a cold shoulder.
Goddammit.I can’t have anything nice.
“Isn’t it crazy to think the forensic scientists who worked on your father’s cases listened to this very same lecture?” he asks quietly, his tone teetering between amusement and curiosity.
I startle at his sudden words, and I loathe the satisfaction I’m certain he feels because of it.
I bite my tongue again, set on ignoring him.
“I’ve always thought having a deeper understanding of forensic science would make someone a better serial killer, don’t you think? They’d know all the evidencenotto leave behind.”
I know what the dickhead is implying, but I have no interest in entertaining him.
So, I type out another note, hoping he doesn’t notice how many times I misspell the word ‘preservation’ but already knowing he did. I don’t want him to know he’s succeeded in making me anxious, but the tips of my fingers have gone numb from anxiety, and I’m struggling to remember if the American version of ‘analyze’ is spelled with anSor aZ. I’m pretty sure it’s aZ.
“Didn’t take you for that type of woman,” he drawls, a hint of amusement in his tone. “But if you beg real pretty for me, I'll help you out.”
I give him a weird look, but when he only stares at my screen, I follow his line of sight and instantly realize what he means.
Fuck, why the hell did I stop typing after ‘anal’ while trying to figure it out? It's been on the screen for at least twenty goddamn seconds.
“Shut up,” I mutter, feigning indifference while I quickly type the remaining letters.
My heart is thumping too fast, but there are only eleven minutes left of class.
You can make it.
“Have you learned about toxicology reports yet? I would’ve loved to know what mine looked like a few weeks ago after you snuck out of mybed,” he continues casually.
My eyes widen, and I glance around to ensure no one heard him. The asshole is going to make people think we slept together, for fuck’s sake.
