Page 108 of Bleed

“Yes.”

“How many are there?”

“One hundred.”

She makes a face. “That’s a lot of blood.”

“It’s a statistically significant sample size,” I say with a shrug, moving onto the next.

Red.

Then another.

Red again.

Beatrix continues loading the rack beside me while I work my way through the samples. She’s nearly finished when a vial slips from her fingers and strikes the tile, shattering on impact.

“Shit.” She winces down at the blood and broken glass on the floor. “I really hope that wasn’t the magic match you were looking for.”

I stare at the mess, jaw clenching. “Sample pool reduced to ninety-nine.”

She snorts and drops into a crouch, reaching automatically for one of the larger shards.

“Don’t,” I bark, her hand freezing mid-reach. “I’ll get it.”

She draws her hand back, straightening slowly. “Okay. Sorry about that.”

“It’s fine,” I grumble.

Her arms fold defensively. “It doesn’t sound like it’s fine.”

I exhale through my nose, removing my glasses long enough to rub the bridge of it.

My irritation isn’t with her. One broken sample is statistically insignificant. It’s the weeks of work with nothing to show for it, the repeated negative results. The possibility that the biological signature I identified in Taylor is truly unique, rendering the entire premise of this experiment useless.

None of which justifies directing my frustration at Beatrix.

“You can call it a night,” I murmur.

Her mouth drops open. “Really?” she scoffs indignantly. “You’re firing me for breaking a sample?”

“No.” I flick a glance up at her. “You’re showing signs of fatigue, and I’m nearly finished.”

“Fine.” She sighs, her gaze lingering on me as she catches her lower lip between her teeth. “Come find me when you’re done?”

I nod.

Her expression brightens just enough to tell me precisely what she expects when I do.

I watch her leave, my attention fixed on the sway of her hips until the laboratory door swings shut behind her. Only then do I exhale, the hunger I’ve been suppressing all evening immediately rushing in to fill the space she left behind.

This is becoming a problem.

Initially, being with her bought me hours of reprieve. For a brief period after sinking inside her, I could think clearly again. Work without distraction, exist in the same room with her without fixating on the way she’d feel beneath my hands.

The reprieve is getting shorter.

I redirect my attention to the experiment. Another sample goes into the analyzer, yielding the same result. Then another. I continue through the remaining vials until only the final row remains, each negative result adding to the growing certainty that Taylor may be precisely what I feared from the beginning: an anomaly.