The voice matches the one that’s been running through my head for the last few days. It’s the woman from the phone: the one at the end of the number Peggy gave me.
“How did you find this?” I ask Jeremy, looking up sharply.
“Each of the reports about the Lucky facilities talked about seeing a lot of teal medicine bottles.”
“I remember,” I tell Jeremy. It was one of the oddities about the witness reports regarding the infiltration and attack. “But I didn’t think anything of it.”
“We started pulling at strings while you were gone,” Marta says. “And this one started to unravel.”
“It turns out that Providential has a trademark on teal medicine bottles. They’re the only ones who use them. They also only have this one drug on the market, at least officially.”
“So we’ve found them,” I whisper, hardly able to believe it’s true.
“We’ve found them.”
Chapter Thirteen
Julie
MY EYES ARE TIRED AND groggy when I open them. The sun is shining, up in the sky, and I realize that I made the mistake of passing out. Fuck. Quickly, my eyes dart to where I tied up Nicole, but she’s still there, lying on her side, somehow managing to snore through her gag.
I kind of hate her a little bit.
Okay, I hate her a lot.
I feel something warm pressed against my back, and I roll away before turning to see what it is.
Who it is.
“Hey,” he murmurs, reaching for me. “Come back.”
I swallow hard.
Lawrence.
I fell asleep next to him and somehow, we ended up spooning all night.
And he’s still definitely, totally, super naked.
And if his morning manhood is anything to judge him by, Lawrence and I would get along very well if the situation were slightly different.
Meaning if we were on a date.
Which we aren’t.
Because this is crazy.
“How are you feeling?” I ask. I try to shove down all of the emotions I’m feeling. I can’t tell whether I’m attracted to him because he’s kind or if it’s because he’s so fucking attractive I can taste it. I can’t tell what I’m supposed to be doing in this situation and that kind of just kills me.
Until this point, my life has been really, really simple.
It’s been easy.
Well, relatively easy. I’ve had my battles, just as everyone has, but I’ve always known what I wanted to do with my life. Teaching has come naturally to me. It’s like breathing. I can’t explain how I do it: I just do. Working with students has provided me with a certain level of freedom of expression. I get to read the books I love and then share them with my students. I can pass on that love of reading and learning every single day.
It’s perfect.
Outside of work, I don’t have many hobbies. I suppose I didn’t really need them until now. When I was dating Andrew, just being with him was enough. We were talking about getting a house together, so I took on extra hours. Subbing and tutoring seemed like a fantastic way to kill time after work.