Page 241 of Dark Love

“I need to talk to you.” And I really don’t want to.

“Sure.” She jumps up. “We’re well stocked, and my inventory sheet is in order. If this is about going over budget—"

“It’s not.” We can’t have this conversation here. “Follow me.”

Halfway up the staircase to Shock’s loft, Barb asks, “Is everything okay with Shock? Should I have brought my bag?”

“Shock is fine.” Physically at least… for now. Will she fix him up after she beats him up for stalking her?

The idea of Barb hurting someone is preposterous. She calls maintenance if she finds a spider. Though most women hate spiders. Will Dahlia scream and call for me when she finds one? A small smile spreads across my face. I don’t bother knocking as I enter his loft.

He’s waiting for us at the kitchen island, dressed in a new outfit with his hair done.

“What’s going on?” Barb's eyes wander around the loft like she’s never seen it before.

“I had a concerning visit this morning, and I’m wondering if you know anything about it?” There’s no visual response except confusion.

“Huh?”

“People are talking about you on the dark web. Do you have any idea as to why they might be talking about you?”

“Oh.” Barb steps back. “Oh.”

“Is that a yes or a no?” I don’t have patience for these people today.

“It’s a… maybe.”

“What did you do, Barb?” Shock steps forward. “I could have set up a private account for you, something that couldn’t have been traced back to you.”

“But it has to be. Without credentials, they wouldn’t have let me into the group.”

Barb did this on purpose. New employee rule: no doing stupid things without going over it with me first so I can knock some sense into you. “What did you do?”

“Nothing. It’s just a theoretical discussion.”

That definitely sounds like something. “What did you theoretically discuss?”

“Every month it changes. Someone different gets to pick the topic.”

Stop making this so hard and just answer the question.

“I had read an article that said it would be hard to create a contagious disease that could wipe out ninety-nine percent of the earth’s population.”

WHAT did she just say? I think I’m getting a migraine, or maybe that’s just the uncontrollable desire to throttle someone within an inch of their life. “So you discussed the article?” That shouldn’t raise many flags and certainly not any in the dark web.

“No. We each discussed what diseases we thought would do the job and how they would be created.”

WHAT!?! It’s definitely the desire to whap someone upside the head. “Why would you do that?”

“So that we could discuss ways to cure the diseases and save the world. It was an interesting discussion. Several members of the group work in infectious disease research. They brought some interesting suggestions to the discussion.”

Some nerdy doctors discussed how to destroy the world just as a fun little mental exercise.

“You don’t need to worry, though. All the doctors are vetted, and no one would actually create any of these, even the infectious disease guys.”

That little statement isn’t all that convincing.

“Discussions like this happen all the time between doctors.”

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