Page 120 of The Blairville Legacies

“No,” I pressed out in concentration.

His gaze inspected mine, searching for the lie behind my unstable facade, and I wondered how readable I was to this man.

Then, unexpectedly, he pushed himself off the table.

“Neither do I,” he replied dryly, spinning around to walk back through the rows of seats to his table. “I believe in facts.” He walked around the table and picked up his iPad. “And this may surprise you, but mythology involves a lot of provable facts.”

He looked around the table, and I had a feeling he was intentionally avoiding my gaze.

Amber turned to me and eyed me, shaking her head, as if she thought I was paranoid. Maybe I was.

The guy was so weird that I was still sitting there in my shock stupor, staring at him like he was a dinosaur skeleton that had gotten lost in theLouvre.

“Howexactlywe can link mythology to molecular biology is something I’ll get into with you another time.”

I looked at David, who was staring at my open laptop.

Quickly, I closed the web page to the DLSC.

David looked at me, eyed me suspiciously, then the Prof.

“He’s human,” he finally said so quietly that only I could hear him.

I gritted my teeth.

Of coursehe was human. But why did this guy seem anything but human? And what kind of prejudice did he have toward my family?

“He works in your family’s research center,” I returned insecurely.

David eyed me as if I had said something clever. Then he looked ahead to the Prof.

“Trust me, Quatura, he’s just a curious person.”

I followed his gaze to the professor, who opened a PowerPoint presentation on the whiteboard.

“Today, however, I will first give you an overview of the course.” He cleared his throat and pointed to the whiteboard, and around me the other students began opening their laptops and notebooks. My gaze lingered on his prominent Adam’s apple. “We only have a few months, which is why this course will only cover the basics of molecular biology: DNA, gene expression, transcription, replication, translation, gene regulation, mutations...”

I listened to the professor and tried to push aside the strange feeling.

He was probably just some highly intelligent fanatic. I didn’t even know what mythologies he was dealing with... Why did I immediately see him as a threat? Maybe because he jumped at my question?

“The subfields we will discuss are genetics, genomics, epigenetics, transcriptomics, proteomics, molecular genetics, molecular immunology, structural biology, molecular oncology, and molecular neurobiology.”

I forced myself to look at the laptop instead of the professor and focus on getting my shaking under control.

Probably, I really was too paranoid.

I shook my head and started typing.

“And, depending on what else you’re studying, you’ll each delve deeper into the topics we’re discussing here in the coming semesters.”

It wasn’t long before my gaze slid back not from the whiteboard to the laptop but to him, and our eyes met.

Again, I held my breath, trying to reassure myself that he was looking at me by maintaining eye contact. Something I had a hard time doing with any other person, but with this unrealistic-looking man, it was like making eye contact with a ghost.

He was no longer smiling. And the intensity of his green eyes made me shudder inside.

He looked away to the whiteboard and continued.

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