“I told your aggravating ass to stop calling me that,” Gus grumbles, emerging from the outer door with Perla in front of him.
His hand rests on the small of her back, and his big frame hovers over her. I tilt my head. His stance is protective like a—
“You two fucking?” Jaq bluntly asks.
I snort as Perla blushes and Gus glares at them.
“Jaq,” Gus growls.
“What? What’d I do?” They shrug. “We’re here to care for our intrepid leader while she’s hurt. You’re the ones doing the nasty beast with two backs in your employer’s house. Thathasto violate some human resource rule.”
This time, I can’t contain my laughter, and despite her glowing cheeks, Perla grins. Gus crosses his arms over his chest and aims a dark scowl at Jaq.
I can’t lie. Having them here with me has kept me grounded, sane. Has helped battle back the sadness. Being the wrongly tortured fiancée of the boss has its perks. I shot Asad a text telling him they were on vacation until future notice, and he okayed it. I guess guilt will get you all kinds of shit.
“Okay, okay. I’m claiming culpable deniability. As far as I know, HoC doesn’t have a fraternization clause, but I need to deny any knowledge in case they do. But”—I arch an eyebrow, fighting back a smirk—“just know I’m going over all my furniture with a black light after you leave, and I will send y’all nasty asses a cleaning bill.”
Perla snickers, then Jaq lets out a hoot of laughter.
“You got that, now can we get to work?” Gus scowls.
“Sure.” I wave them toward the door leading to the secondarylab holding our subjects. Another thing I love about this new space. We have the main area with separate showers, centrifuges, eight stations complete with their own sinks, tubes, microscopes, and any other equipment we use on a daily. And we also have a separate room for housing the subjects. No more being crammed together in one space. We have privacy to conduct our experiments. And don’t have to listen to all that whining.
As the door closes behind Gus, I lead them over to the subject in the chair.
“Subject three. Test group,” I begin, picking up my tablet from the small desk. Maneuvering to the file that holds its data, I double tap, opening it. Satisfied, I walk over to the chair and stand in front of it. “Before you three arrived, I took its vitals, and temperature is 99.3 degrees, blood pressure 130 over 90. Heart rate 110. A 24 BPM.” I scan the subject, and it stares back at me, glossy eyes wide. The fear and uncertainty there is like a heated, sensual touch across my skin. With anticipation crackling in my veins like a hit of my own drug, I pass the device to Perla, who stands closest to me. “Take notes, please,” I say, removing a light from my lab coat pocket. Clicking it on, I shift closer to the subject and shine the beam into one eye then the other. “Pupils slightly dilated. Relaxed jaw and neck. The neck of its gown exhibits signs of perspiration, but only around the collar. Recording now at 8:16 a.m. that the drug was administered—” I pause and turn so I’m looking at my assistants. “At 9:00 p.m. the previous evening.”
Their gasps and exclamations of “What?” and “Are you serious?” elicit a huge smile that feels foreign on my face. I chuckle and shake my head as Jaq grabs the tablet from Perla and devours the data on the screen as if it’s their last meal.
“From the vitals, slightly elevated BP, heart and respiratory rates, and temperature, the drug is still having a physiological effect.Eleven hours later.Holy shit,” Jaq breathes.
“Vomiting? Hallucinations?” Gus raps out, gaze glued to the screen over Jaq’s shoulder.
“None. Not once. And check the last lab results.” I wait for them to click through to the file, but I can’t hold my excitement. “The urine and blood samples are completely clean. And it hasn’t even come completely down from Fairy Dust yet,” I brag.
“Holy shit,” Jaq repeats.
Perla’s head pops up, and a grin stretches across her face and lights up her eyes behind her glasses. “You did it. You really did it.”
“Wedid it,” I correct her.
All three smile at me, and I return it, thankful for them. And not just their hard and tireless work but their loyalty, their friendship. For so many years, I didn’t have any of those—wasn’t allowed to by Marcus or Michelle. Which makes Jaq, Gus, and Perla’s presence in my life even more special.
“Of course, we need to run more tests for both groups and with different variables, but I think we can cautiously celebrate. Fairy Dust is a success. And I couldn’t have done it without you three.” They shake their heads and start to object, but I hold up a hand. “It’s true. So that makes this drug yours as much as it’s mine. I don’t know if I’ve made it clear before, but over at the Castle, we might be employer, employees. But we stopped being that a long while ago. We’re partners. Which means, once Fairy Dust is perfected and ready to be distributed, we will split the proceeds four equal ways. As partners should.”
Shock saturates their expressions, and they glance at one another. Even Jaq is speechless.
“Ember, are you sure?” Perla hesitantly asks. “I mean, we’re employees—”
“This doesn’t belong to Cross; it never has. This”—I sweep an arm, indicating the entire lab—“is ours. So yes, I’m sure. I mean, we have a long way to go before we start to see profit, but believe me, when this hits the streets… Freedom,” I murmur.
“Well, shit, I’m not going to try and convince you otherwise,” Jaq announces, clapping their hands once, then rubbing them together. I laugh. “The thought alone of paying off my student loanshas me ready to get to work now. Cross pays me nicely, but a PhD doesn’t come cheap.” They frown, lowering their arms. “Oh wait, that’s right. Are you working today? You have that ball tonight—your engagement party on steroids. Hulk Hogan steroids. The steroids he refuses to admit he was jacked up on, steroids.” They scan me up and down. “Are you spending the day getting pampered for it?”
I barely smother my snort. “Yeah, no.” I dip my chin toward the strapped-in subject. “Gus, could you move it back to its cage?”
He moves to handle that, but Perla and Jaq continue to frown at me.
“What do you mean, ‘yeah, no’?” Perla asks. “You can’t mean you’re not going?”
