Page 10 of Glass Rose
He was right behind me. How could he just disappear? Did he turn back? Get snatched by something lurking in the shadows?
Every sound amplifies—my heartbeat, my breathing, the soft whir. And… something else. A wet, shuffling sound from the far corner of the lab.
I’m not alone.
My eyes strain. The corner where we keep the centrifuge is cast in shadow, but something moves there.
“Hello?” My hand slaps over my mouth. Am I stupid?
The figure shuffles forward, and my heart stops. Dr. Brown, head of my research division. The man who recruited me. The man who gradually revealed the true nature of our work, one small ethical compromise at a time.
His lab coat hangs in tatters, soaked with blood that appears black in the poor light. His mouth, often curved in condescending smiles, hangs slack, dripping with thickfluid.
“Dr. Brown.” I back away slowly. “James. It’s me. Sofia.”
No recognition flickers in those milky eyes. Just hunger. Primal and absolute.
I retreat until my back hits the sample refrigerator. Nowhere left to go. He advances. I grope blindly along the lab bench beside me, searching for anything that could serve as a weapon. A metal tray—the one we use for tissue samples—meets my desperate fingers. Not much of a defense, but it’s all I have.
“I’m sorry.” I raise the tray as he surges for me, teeth bared. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
The tray won’t save me. Nothing will. In this moment, as my former mentor’s blood-stained hands seek me out, I know with absolute certainty that I’m going to die.
And it’s exactly what I deserve.
THREE
SOFIA
This is it. This is how I die.
Karma’s a bitch.
Dr. Brown’s bloody fingers almost touch me before he’s blindsided by a force I can’t even identify. His body crumples against the centrifuge with a wet thud, and standing in his place is a tall, lean figure in a tattered hospital gown. Subject 7. The man I’ve participated in torturing for fourteen months straight.
He clutches Dr. Brown by the hair, ripping his head back before slamming his skull against the metal edge of the lab bench with sickening force. Brain matter and blood spray across the lab equipment, droplets splattering the glass refrigerator door and… me.
Dr. Brown twitches once, twice, then goes still.
“I’ve been planning to kill him for months.” Subject 7 releases Brown’s lifeless body, and it slides to the floor in a boneless heap, leaving a dark crimson smear down the cabinet. “And you just gave me another reason.”
He talks? Has the virus already evolved?
His blue eyes lock onto mine, unnervingly clear amid thecarnage. His breathing is steady, controlled—nothing like the ragged gasps scraping through my chest.
I’m next. I’m going to die.
I grip the metal tray harder and swing it, connecting with his bicep. The impact reverberates through my body, but he barely flinches. Just tilts his head, studying me like I’m a particularly interesting lab specimen.
Which, fair. That’s exactly what I did to him.
I scramble, lab coat catching on a drawer handle, knocking me off balance. I hit the floor hard, elbow cracking against the tile, pain shooting up my arm. Shit. I crab-walk backward until I bump into the wall, with nowhere left to go. Again.
“Dr. Cruz.”
I stare up at him. H-He knows my name?
His hospital gown hangs off his broad shoulders, revealing the full extent of what we’ve done to him. Surgical scars crisscross his torso. Track marks line his arms where we injected the virus variants, over and over. His hair hangs long and dark around a face that might once have been friendly before we tortured him.
