Apolonia

Cy had made it a point to remain aloof since we met, and now he was walking me to my classes. A part of me wanted to ask him more questions about why he had gone from one extreme to the other, but I was afraid if I did, it would make things awkward, and he would stop.

There was no use in pretending that I didn’t want or need him around more, so I nodded and went inside, relieved to know Cy would be there when class was over.

Chapter Seven

JUST A FEW DAYS BEFORE THANKSGIVING BREAK, the sidewalks were clustered with red-faced but otherwise chipper students and faculty, almost all of them holding a Styrofoam cup of steaming hot liquid. I didn’t drink coffee, tea, soda, or hot chocolate. If I drank anything but water, my throat would feel dry and raw. My father said that Mom must have passed that down to me because she was the same way until she turned forty, and then she tried her first glass of wine, and that became her new favorite beverage.

Christ, she was beautiful. Even her last day on this earth with mascara running down her face and a rag tied tightly across her mouth, she was the embodiment of beauty. When my father was happy, he would call her honey or dearest, and when he was angry, he would say Charlotte, but even then, her name sounded lovely. The night we all died, my father said her name in a tone I didn’t recognize. A warning. She remained calm until they began tying my wrists, but then she fought them in utter despair.

“Charlotte,” my father had said, “sit still, love. It will all be over soon. Just let them get what they came for, and we can go home.” He looked at me with calm eyes. “It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s going to be okay.”

That was when she looked at me for forgiveness. She was a ferocious mother bear, unleashing her wrath on anyone who dared mistreat me or disrespect me or made me feel anything less than the amazing being she thought I was. Watching the knots being tied around my wrists and then behind my head, the begging in my eyes, and the torture on my face when I had to watch them hurt my best friend, who I’d known and loved since I was three, killed her hours before she died.

“Rory?”

I was standing outside of Microphysics class, frozen.

“You look lost,” Benji said.

“Isn’t everyone?” I said, leaving him alone in the hallway.

Benji chuckled as I passed. “That’s deep, Rory. We feeling a little emo today? Hey…I’m just kidding…Rory?”

My boots stomped up the stairs to a desk, and my bag fell off my shoulder to the floor. Ice-cold fingers found their way to my chest to touch the stained hair that was no longer there. When I needed to remember her, I would reach for my hair, but I’d shaved it off so that I could forget.

Forget my mother. Who does that? Was it too much for me to keep the one tangible thing I had left of her? It wasn’t only my blood that had saturated my hair but hers, too. And I’d thrown it in the trash.

For the last three years, Thanksgiving had been difficult for me, and I could feel myself breaking down. It was going to be a rough day.

As the professor instructed straight from the physics textbook, I took unnecessary notes in the margins with shaky hands, not having a clue about what I was writing down on the pages. By the time class was dismissed, my anxiety was nearly intolerable.

Dr. Zorba’s office was in the building, so I pushed my way past the other students, focusing on the relief I might feel once I was sitting in his ugly and itchy orange chair. It was there when he’d been hired at Kempton thirty years before.

Without knocking, I pushed my way inside and sat in the chair, focusing on my breathing. In. Out. In. Out. In…out. In…out.

“Difficult morning?” Dr. Z said, not looking up from the paper he was scribbling on.

“I need her today.”

“I told you not to cut the hair.”

“Too late.”

Once I got a handle on my breathing, I noticed someone sitting in the swivel chair on the other side of Dr. Z’s desk. It startled and embarrassed me, and then that embarrassment flashed to anger.

“What are you doing in here?”

Cy didn’t answer. He just watched as my eyes darted between him and the professor.

“We had a meeting,” Dr. Z said.

“About the research?” I said. “Why wasn’t I called to this meeting?”

Dr. Z wasn’t fazed. “You’re worked up, Rory. Calm down, and then we’ll talk.”

“You didn’t know I was having a bad morning. That has nothing to do with my exclusion from a research meeting.”

“You’re assuming it was a research meeting,” the doctor said, his voice low and calm as always. “Remember, Cyrus is also my student. We do have other things to talk about.”

“It’s not Cyrus. It’s just Cy,” I said.

Both of them gave me a funny look.

“He’s the one who said it,” I said, motioning to Cy. I was surprised he hadn’t let the professor know that he preferred the shorter name.

Dr. Z just watched me, waiting for me to come to some sort of a conclusion.

“Okay,” I said, getting angrier by the minute. “Well, I guess I’d better excuse myself, so you can finish your meeting.”

“Sit,” Dr. Z said. “We were finished. We can talk about the research since you’re both here.”

I settled into my seat, satisfied with that suggestion.

Dr. Z continued, “I’ve determined that this project should be kept between us. All the data should be recorded and put into an encrypted file, and then all the paperwork should be shredded and taken to the incinerator.”

I lowered my chin, watching the professor speak. He had a stern look, one I hadn’t seen before. He wasn’t kidding.

“And we shouldn’t speak of it,” Cy added, “to anyone.”

“What am I missing?” I asked.

Dr. Z intertwined his fingers and rested his hands on his desk. “I’ve been receiving emails from a Dr. Fenton Tennison. He’s from a special division at the CIA, one of the heads of a committee of scientists, military leaders, and government officials. In some circles, this committee is known as Majestic Twelve. He’s…interested in the specimen.”

I sat up. “So, the rumors are true then?”

Dr. Z sighed. “It appears so, but that’s not good news for us.”

I’d heard Dr. Z talk about Dr. Tennison before, and my father before that. Tennison was labeled unethical before I was born, and he’d been all but dismissed in most scientific circles. Regardless, he was brilliant, and some research institutions brought him on board until they couldn’t deal with his kind of crazy anymore. After Tennison disappeared from the science world, it was rumored more than once that he’d been commissioned by a super think tank within the CIA.