Page 41 of Bleed

“I don’t know. Somewhere people can see it.”

“Why?”

“Why not?” I scoff. “Aren’t you proud of it?”

“Of course,” he replies, lifting his chin. “My pride doesn’t hinge on the opinions of others.”

I roll my eyes, turning on a heel and striding back toward the hallway. “You’re so weird.”

His nostrils flare as I brush past him, his dark eyes locked on me with predatory focus. A little shiver slides down my spine, fight or flight instincts kicking, but he doesn’t pounce. He just calmly closes the office door behind us and continues down the hall.

I’m not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed.

He unlocks the next door with all the fanfare of the first two, pushing it open and stepping aside to allow me entry. I advance, then stop when I realize what I’m about to walk into.

His bedroom.

But once again, my expectations are a far cry from reality.

I expected flickering candles and crushed velvet, something dark and decadent and a little bit dangerous. Instead, his bedroom is almost aggressively simple– a large bed with a charcoal duvet, a nightstand with a book turned facedown upon it, and a slim dresser along the wall. Blackout shades are drawn tight over the windows, and there’s no clutter, no personal photos, nothing that gives away what kind of person he is when he isn’t wearing the mask of a brilliant, immortal scientist.

I freeze up for a second, hesitant to invade this space like I did the others. The study was fine, the office was interesting, but entering this room feels intimate in a way I wasn’t expecting.

“This is where you sleep,” I say, because apparently my brain has decided that stating the obvious is safer than thinking too hard about the fact I’m standing in Elliott Faulkner’s actual bedroom.

“Yes,” he replies simply.

“You sleep in a bed.”

“I do.”

I nod slowly, turning back to him. “I guess I expected a coffin or something.”

He studies me for a moment, then looks past me into the room. “I don’t enjoy confined spaces.”

It’s the first thing he’s said that feels less like information and more like a glimpse through a crack in the wall. Something personal, something real.

I take a step backwards into the hall, and he reaches for the door handle, pulling it closed with a soft click. I crane my neck to look up at him, and he stares down at me for a long, loaded moment. A strange flutter rolls through my stomach, the air between us tightening.

Then he turns, heading for a door on the opposite side of the hall rather than continuing in the direction we’d been going.

“What about those?” I ask, gesturing toward the remaining two doors.

He pauses, his eyes following mine. “Storage.”

I’m about to argue or insist that he show me anyways, but then he says, “The laboratory is through here,” and I’m immediately distracted. Because the other rooms were mostly boring, but his mad scientist lab is guaranteed to be a doozy.

Dr. Faulkner taps his key fob against the scanner beside the door, a green light flashing. Then several locks disengage in sequence, the sound echoing faintly through the hallway.

“Okay, that’s cool,” I breathe, practically buzzing with anticipation.

“It’s a door,” he deadpans.

“It’s a very dramatic door.”

The corner of his mouth twitches– not quite a smile, but it’s something. Then he pushes the door open.

The room beyond it is enormous– easily the size of the other three combined– and lit by rows of white LEDs set flush into the ceiling. Benches run the entire length of it, loaded with all kinds of expensive-looking equipment. Unlike the minimalism of the other rooms I’ve seen, this one is overflowing with stuff, my curious gaze skimming over labeled tubes, petri dishes, and sealed containers of god-knows-what.