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His gaze was fixed on my arm, focused on the spot where a thin dark vein appeared.

Once again, he carefully placed his two fingers on that spot.

He felt my pulse. And with such caution...

Then he looked up again.

“Are you afraid?”

He could feel my heartbeat.

“No,” I replied with my last ounce of strength, even though my body wanted nothing more than to melt under his touch.

“Julie.” He scrutinized me, his expression the usual enigma. “I don’t like it when you lie to me.” He reached for one of the syringes and lowered his voice. “You already know that.”

By now, my breathing was so shallow that I wondered how much longer it would be before I couldn't breathe anymore.

Quentin. This is Quentin.

“I'm not lying,” I said firmly as he placed the pleasantly cold needle in the crook of my arm. “Professor.”

That was the moment he pushed the needle into my vein.

I clenched my teeth and dug my other hand into the white leather beneath me.

“Quentin,” he murmured with a grim look, and I wondered how he managed not to miss my vein when he was busy destroying me with his piercing gemstone eyes.

His gaze was demanding, continuing to claw into mine.

“Quentin,” I repeated.

And then I realized that I had just said his name for the first time.

I thought I saw something flit through his eyes, but I couldn’t quite place it.

He took his gaze off me and focused on the needle in my arm.

With a strange feeling in my stomach, I watched as he took one, then a second, and eventually a third syringe of blood before bandaging my arm without making skin-to-skin contact with me even once.

He then stood up, walked over to the table next to the head of the examination table, and filled the test tubes in his plastic case with my blood.

I wanted to slide off the table, but Quentin turned to me and eyed me up and down.

“Since you are neither Ruisangor nor Senseque and you are also in a very critical stage, I recommend that you remain seated for the next half hour.”

Dystopia

Secession Studios, Greg Dombrowski

I had listened to him and drunk enough, as well as eaten sufficiently, before coming here, but I was already feeling tired and exhausted.

Why were our Quatura bodies as weak as those of humans, when we had completely different DNA and carried the potential for elemental control within us?

I pulled myself back onto the examination table and tried once more to ignore that he was concerned about my well-being, fully aware that it was the inquisitive researcher in him who didn't want to lose his experiment to an avoidable mistake in the process.

Disillusionment spread through me.

“What are you going to do with that?” I asked, trying to distract myself, and pointed to my blood samples.