For days I've been feeling out of it.
Sawyer has been avoiding me like the plague. He's immersed in his work. He's hired a bunch of interns to take part of his research.
I graduate in a couple of months and medical school is out of the question. I have changed my mind, I just want to experiment in labs and do research.
I walk over to Sawyers office. He's sitting at his desk, his face fully concentrated on the computer screen.
"Sawyer." I whisper. He immediately looks up. He looks so cute with his glasses and messy curls, granted he needs a haircut.
I clear my throat before I start talking and sit on the chairs he has. He raises a questioning eyebrow and I continue,
"I was wondering if I could join your intern group thing." I put my nervous hands underneath my thighs. Sawyer breathes out, takes off his glasses and finally he folds his hands together.
"No." He curtly smiles and goes back to his computer.
"Why not?" I argue.
"You're not qualified. I will be working with students who are top of their class."
"I'm top of my class. I'm top in my whole entire school." I argue.
"Online school." He snorts.
"It's better than nothing. I've learned a lot. I know a lot." I say, my argument weak. "I can prove it to you." I tell him and he squints his eyes, contemplating.
"You can stay a week, and you'll know your answer by the end."
"It can be fun. You and me working together." I smile, but he doesn't seem one bit of amused. "I'm just trying to make something of myself. I have no money, no parents to rely on."
"You will never have to worry about money." He says. I sit there, looking at him. He's changed, he seems older now. Every time I look at him, he's almost always looks like he's on the verge of tears.
When he doesn't see me leaving, his attention turns back to me.
"Yes?" He questions.
"We have to talk about it sooner or later."
"Later." He gruffly says.
"Later with you is never." I roll my eyes. I quickly get up and close the door to his office.
He leans back, arms crossed.
"I don't know what you want me to say, Opal." He shrugs.
"How about start with why you left." I sit, patiently waiting for him to say something.
"I left because I thought I could fix something." He says.
"Joseph dying?" I whisper.
"No. Just listen." He glares and I lean in closer, excited for this story.
"Okay." I whisper.
"I thought I could replicate your necklace." He says and my hand flies to my neck. My necklace it's gone. It's not around my neck. How haven't I noticed.
"That's what they wanted. My necklace!" I say out loud. "I need Evan. I need to tell him."
"Who wanted your necklace?" He questions, he's serious once again.
"And you. You were there. You took me to the hospital didn't you?" I question and he immediately stays quiet.
"Those men. They hit me with a car. They wanted my necklace."
"Opal, where is your necklace?" He questions.
"In my room." I lie. It's not, I hope it is. He takes my hand in his.
"Where is the necklace, Opal?" He asks again. I swallow hard.
"In my room." I tell him and he shakes his head no.
"Your pulse quickened." He says, letting go of my wrist.
"Sorry." I sheepishly apologize.
"We need that necklace." He says. He gets on the phone and starts talking really fast. I sit there until he finishes. "What are you still doing here?" He questions.
"I'm waiting for you to tell me everything that happened while you were gone." I cross my arms over my chest.
"Long story short, the replica I made didn't reverse any damage. In fact it fucked it up more." He says and I sigh.
"We'll try again tomorrow." Eventually he'll open up to me right? I go in for a hug but he stops me.
"Go away, Opal." He says and I do just that.
The next morning I wake up ready to intern. It's a paid internship and we get all knew equipment, lab coats, goggles, gloves. Everything we need is payed for and each is personalized.
"Morning." I smile at everyone. I feel great, happy in fact.
"Someone seems off." Avery raises an eyebrow.
"Am I always grumpy?" I question.
"In the mornings, in the afternoons, and evenings." Evan announces. Sawyer snorts at Evans comment and I glare at the both of them.
"I'm just excited about today. The internship." I turn to Sawyer, he chokes on the milk from his cereal.
"You're letting her?" Evan questions.
"Yes." I nod, smiling.
"She won't last a week." He evils smiles at his brother.
"She's top of her class. Of course she will." Avery cuts in.
'Thank you' I mouth to her and she nods.
We stop bickering when we hear the door bell echo throughout the house and Nancy's small footsteps running into the kitchen.
"Sawyer, the interns are here. They're waiting in the formal living room."
Sawyer downs the last of their cereal. He checks his watch, "They're early, I'm impressed." He says. He stands up and I notice he's in a navy blue suit. Hot professor is an understatement.
I follow after him and into the living room. A group of about fifteen are aimlessly standing, some are looking around, intrigued by everything. The only weird thing is they're all mostly women. Beautiful women in white coats. They look like they belong on a tv show. There are only three guys.
"Good morning." Sawyer greets. "Welcome to my home." He says. I stand next to him, not really sure what to do. He realizes I'm next to him and he eyes for me to join the group.
I grab my coat and put it on and join the group.
"Feel free to take as many waters and snacks." He points to a moving snack cart. They ooo and ahh, and nod.
Someone raises their hand.
"Professor Pierce. We'll be evaluated by the end of this week and there will only be three who make it, correct?" A girl with long straight blonde hair asks.
"Correct." Sawyer nods.
"So who is she?" She points to me. Sawyers meets my eyes,
"She is no one. She signed up late." He clamps his hands together.
"If we're done with questions, then follow me." But before Sawyer can lead them someone else raises their hand.
"Go ahead, Lina." Sawyers says.
"She won't be a problem? She won't affect our scores? It seems a little unfair shes here last minute. It was hard getting into this program."
"None of you have to worry. Everyone will be treated harshly and fairly." He smiles at everyone and they seem to come.
He waits for more people to raise their hand and when no one does he's leads us to the yard. He has an outside lab set up.
As we're walking I hear everyone whispering,
"She must have slept her way here." A girl whispers loud enough for me to hear.
"There's no way she will understand anything today." Another one says.
"She's not even dressed formally."
"Hey, don't listen to them. They can be mean." Lina walks up to me.
"Right." I look down at the casual clothes I'm wearing. Everyone is in a dress and heals.
"So, how do you know the professor?" Lina asks and I look over to Sawyer. He's cautiously watching me and panic runs through my mind. How do I know Sawyer.
"Sawyer? He's my..." I don't get to finish when she cuts me off.
"Sawyer? That's his first name?" She questions. "So you guys are on a first name bases." She nods to her self, she seems almost jealous.
"Opal, you'll be in this station." He points to the one closest to him.
Lina looks at me with a sort of glare.
"Casey, your in this station." Shes right across from me. He assigns each station and we're all given an agar plate and a few microscope slides.
"I need you all to study the slides and everything that is in front of you and on your clipboard give me the correct name, what it does and how dangerous it is from a scale of one to ten." He announces. Everyone right away starts studying. I take a look at the agar plate, it's some sort of fungus.
I grab the agar plate and walk over to Sawyers station which is two steps away from me.
"This is yeast right?" I stare at the plate of white spots and Q-tip cotton swabs.
"Opal, you can't ask me those questions." He sounds a little activated.
"But I'm right, right?" I ask, still intrigued by what I'm looking at.
"Yes." He whispers and I smile.
When I turn around half the class is staring at me. I ignore them and start the slides.
The girl across from me walks over to Sawyer, here high heels clacking on the ground and she shows him the plate.
He smiles at her and she talks about the plate. She even touches his shoulder as she laughs at whatever joke she's made. We all hear her high heals as she walks back.
I can't concentrate, aggravated by the way these girls are acting.
"Hmm, strange." I whisper to myself. I get a slide that is fully black. Almost like black ink, except it's not. This is the sickness we both had, except it's not my sickness it's Sawyers.
He's making his interns study this. This is all supposed to be top secret.
I write down what it is, 'zombie blood' not really knowing the technical term.
"Change stations." He says and my eyes widen. No one can no about this. We change stations and I write down what I see. This is too easy, but I guess since it's the first day.
Sawyer walks around each station, talking to his interns but he deliberately ignores me and my presence.
Jerk.
A girl watches as he skips right over me and smirks.
"Professor, on this agar plate you can see the colonies growing bigger." She says almost excited.
"Nerd." I mutter and Sawyer hears me. He can't hold back his smile and he clears his throat.
"It's not moving, there are maggots." He corrects her and her smile falls.
It's two hours of this. Just studying and looking at slides. I'm so bored. I lean against the table and close my eyes.
"Times us. Turn in your clip boards. Break for fifteen while I correct these papers." He waves us off.
"I have a question." Lina says and waits for everyone to leave.
I stay at my station, studying the one I'm on. This one is different, I remember seeing this one in Sawyers lab when we were in Canada. This is my blood and looks completely different from his.
This whole thing is for researchers to study. He wants more feedback and answers without wanting to bring in more awareness from actual top head masters at universities.
Interesting.
I forget Sawyer is talking to Lina when I hear her giggling and laughing really loud. I look over to them and see her really close to Sawyer. Their backs are to me as he shows her something in the microscope.
I think he's flirting with her. It's confirmed when he laughs at something she's says. I quickly turn back to the slides and accidentally drop all of them on the floor. The sound of glass causes them to turn to me.
Lina gasps really loud.
My face turns red as I quickly look for a dust broom to sweep it up.
"Calm down." I hear Sawyer say as he sees my shaking hand. His warm hands cover mine and I stop sweeping and regulate my breathing.
"Sorry. They were on the edge of the table."
"Opal. It's fine." He smiles and I nod. It's weird that he's being nice to me.
He walks over to his desk as I clean up the remains glass. He's correcting papers and there's no sight of Lina.
I'm not sure how to feel about this whole thing. Jealousy courses through me. All these girls only joined to get closer to him.
"What's wrong?" Sawyer ask and I angrily through the glass into the bin.
"What? Oh nothing." I shake my head.
"Why are you hiring interns?" I question.
"They need experience and I need help with miscellaneous things."
I nod, not liking his answer.
"You're using my blood without my permission." I tell him and he snaps his head up to me.
"They won't figure out what it is. They're not that bright. They're just conditioned to get good grades. They have no experience." He talks them down, which makes me kind of feel better.
"Not the point." I roll my eyes.
"You're the only one who got a perfect score. You're bored. This isn't for you. You're more of needing action and needing to find something new." He says and I shrug.
"Maybe you can figure out what this is while everyone else is doing their regular thing." He says and I perk up slightly.
"You're entourage of fans won't be mad?" I question and he chuckles. "I seem to be a threat. Upset that I even know your first name." I roll my eyes.
"Are you jealous?" He questions, his face getting serious.
"No." I quickly say.
"And I only got a perfect score because with knew the two blood samples. I got two more points than everyone else."
"Zombie blood?" He laughs at my answer.
"What are you calling it?"
"Komodo dead."
I can't help but laugh, it's clever but it's doesn't have a nice ring to it.
"You're joking."
"Komodo dragons mouth is so harmful to humans it has so much bacteria that when it bites you you're done for. Not to mention they're have a venomous bite." He taps his pen on the table as he tries to make his point.
"Clever. But I like the word zombie." I tell him.
"You know what they're calling them. Zombie isn't even a phrase." He says and my eyes widen as he tells me about what he's seen whole time traveling.
"They're called Hollows." He whispers.
"Hollows." I say out loud. It does have a nice ring to it. It makes sense. My smile falls. We're going to have to live through a zombie apocalypse.
Sawyer creases his eyebrows, and when he's about to ask what's wrong all the students start piling in.
He points to the glass plate that's on his table and I take it back to my station.
"I'm impressed by your scores. Only one person got a full score." Sawyer announces and my eyes widen. No, why is he saying this. "I won't say who." He smiles as he hands back the papers.
He gives me my paper that has a low score. A fake low score. I breathe out relieved. No one is going to pick on me.
I look up at Sawyer who is already looking at me and I smile, thankful he did this. I'm sure he heard those girls being mean to me.
"Fifty out of one hundred. Ouch." Lina says as she sees my test.
I cover my test, feigning embarrassment.
"Yeah." I quickly look down.
"If you look belies your lab table you will see a machine. I need you all to work on your own and come up with a solution that will kill and clear away anything that is on your agar plate. You have until the rest of the day. Good luck." Sawyer says. He buttons up his suit and leaves us there.
When they see I'm not coming up with a solution they'll know something is up.
I study the slide in hopes that no one notices.
"Maybe he wants her to testify the slides. She did horrible." I hear Lina whisper. Or at least try to, at this point she doesn't care if I hear or not.
"Do you think he'll come back?" Someone else asks and everyone shrugs.
When I take a look at the microscope I see that it's skin. Rotten skin. I take it out from the slide and smell it. The smell is deathly.
How did Sawyer get this?
"Opal!" I hear Nancy call out my name. She makes her way into the lab.
"Everyone, dinner is waiting for you inside." Nancy says out loud. She walks over to me,
"Here's your necklace. I found it under your bed." She hands it to me.
"Thank god." I quickly put it on.
"Sawyer called everyone he knows to go out looking for it. I'm just glad it's safe." Shes smiles as she pats my arm.
Everyone takes off their coats as they head inside. I head for Sawyers office.
"I found the necklace."
"Nancy found it." Sawyer corrects.
"I think it would be safer with you. But you have to promise never to use it. Hide somewhere safe."
He nods at my plea and I hand it to him.
"Will you be joining us for dinner?" He questions. I get the sudden smell of the rotten flesh and I smell my fingers.
"What's wrong?" He asks, "you've gone pale." He gets up.
"I don't feel good." I tell him and rush out of there and to the bathroom.
I spend most of my time lying on the bathroom floor nauseous. I throw up every hour. Nancy has been bringing me teas and waters, making sure I'm hydrated but I can't seem to keep anything down.
I'm comfortable on the floor. Nancy brought me a pillow and blanket. The only place I don't feel nauseous is on the floor.
Hours pass before I hear the bathroom door swing open.
I'm still super nauseous and my throat hurts from throwing up.
I open one eye and see Sawyer standing by the door way. He's dressed down, his dressy shirt now a white t-shirt and he's wearing black jogger sweats.
"You have to eat something." He softly says.
"I ate a toasted bread. Threw it up." I tell him but he ignores me and gives me another toasted bread.
"Eat." He demands, but it sounds so nice compared to his normal commands.
I take a bite and look at him.
"This is all your fault, you know." I glare at him.
"How so?" He asks, amusement swimming in his eyes.
"The rotten skin. I smelled it. And now I'm nauseous."
I crawl to the toilet bowl and start heaving as I gag the piece of bread I ate. Sawyer holds my hair back as I puke into his toilet.
"Thank you." I say and he nods. He leaves and when he comes back he has a blanket and a pillow in hand.
He gets comfy beside me. I lay on his chest, and he wraps his arms around me.
Hugging him is like sinking into the warmest bath. And I lie there in the soft silence of his warmth.
"You're the stupid one for smelling the skin." He whispers, laughing softly. I'm too exhausted to argue so I groan in response and flick his chest. He grabs my arm to place it over his chest.
"Your skin is burning where the bite mark is." I don't care what he has to say, I'm too nauseous to listen. "I'm sorry. Hope you feel better in the morning. Goodnight." He says and kisses the top of my forehead.
Sleep settles in right after that.
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Hey!! Updated finally!
Hope you guys enjoy!
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