I don’t know what it was about our group, but we were different. In a way, we were all closer. A trauma bond from everything we had built together, all that we had survived.
Though some of them, Rebecca namely, had reverted to cold shells, as if she had not known us all these years. I could just be intellectualizing her trauma. I couldn’t imagine it, but even her interactions with her friends were reserved. She could barely look at Mary.
I looped my scarf around my neck before reaching for the door. A hand yanked my wrist.
“Are you sure you should go out like that?” Silas eyed me critically.
“I am wearing nothing unusual?—”
“That is not what I meant.”
My cheeks grew hot. The way he lowered his voice made me feel entirely dirty.
Phoebe threw a glare at him as she whispered something to Mary nearby.
“I’ll be out for not even an hour. I don’t see the problem.”
“Can’t someone else do it?” He argued. “It’s a petty task; get someone else to go. Someone not as... noticeable.”
“I’m beginning to think you’re insulting me.” I tore my wrist from his hand.
“Let me help.”
“With what? Holding my wicker basket?” I laughed.
He let go of my hand and furrowed his brows. His posture was rigid, clearly uncomfortable. I wasn’t sure if it was from our encounter upstairs or because he was worried. Either way, I didn’t need a chaperone.
“Promise me you will not follow,” I warned him.
“Tell me where you’re going, and I’ll stay put.”
I clenched my jaw, feeling a twitch in my brow. “Just the shop, then straight to the hospital. I may pick up things for this week’s dinners.”
He studied me, as if trying to detect a lie, a plan. While we were on lukewarm terms, it didn’t take any particular attention to feel the residual anxiety in Silas that I was quickly coming to know.
I walked into town rather than by saddle.
Nothing much could be told about the lab. I would have liked to say that I was productive, but I spent most of my time getting distracted or daydreaming. The most I could do was wash the glassware before I did a fresh blood draw for Edith.
The blood transfusion apparatus was propped tall and proud on the workbench next to some gauze in preparation for the extraction. When I opened the drawers to grab the tourniquet, I caught sight of the bottle with my special venom solution in it. There was hardly any left, but I wasn’t able to spare any for myself from recent extractions.
I ignored that insufferable itch at the back of my neck for now; I had to focus on the task at hand.
I set the apparatus up on the table, one tube resting in a glass bottle, and the other tube was intended for my arm—functioning similarly to a standard transfusion.
Tying the tourniquet around my arm, I inserted the needle into the vein in the crook of my arm. When the needle was set, I could use the apparatus to control the flow, sluggishly filling the cylinder. When it reached about a liter, I turned a dial to allow it to flow out and into the glass bottle.
I pinched the needle from my arm and wiped it with gauze, but before I took off the tourniquet, I grabbed the bottle of venom at the bottom of the drawer and a brass syringe.
I might as well use the rest.
I drew the last of the golden solution up into the glass of the syringe, studying it as I held it up to the light.
One more.
I placed the needle in the nape of my arm, and the solution shot through my veins, invading my nerves and instantly numbing me into a state of tranquility. Any pain from before dissolved along with its memory.
I placed the needle on the table, rubbing my face with my hands. It was like the air was cleaner when I breathed, cooling me from the inside out. I felt like a passenger in my own life, so I might as well do something that I could control.
