Chapter 2
"What do you mean you're leaving?" Jane asked as she stood from her chair, she slapped her book shut and gave me a very hard and uneasy look. She was sitting in the chair just outside our mother's hospital room minding her own business before I made the mistake of trying to have this conversation in the middle of the hallway, though it was fairly empty. "You said you were going to take time off yesterday. You're going back to California already?"
"Jane, please." I begged, not willing to get into details about why I was fleeing Seattle so soon.
"Don't Jane me! Our mother is going to need all of us! She's going to have to go through…" Jane ran her hands through her short, messy auburn hair which is usually always nicely done but the stress has clearly gotten to her. She wasn't wearing a lick of makeup, and her clothes were baggy and loose fitting. "Chemo…and rehabilitation…and she needs you. She needs her family. You can't leave, Jillian! Are you fucking kidding me right now?" Her voice rose with every syllable and I cringed when she threw the book she was reading over my shoulder, narrowly missing my head.
"I have a lot of work to do with my—"
"I don't give a fuck about your work, Jillian—don't give me that bullshit, okay? Our mother is dying." Her voice sunk below an octave, cracking at the final word. "And you're just going to leave…again? Run away like you always do? Is it dad? Is that it? Are you running away because dad gave you a little hard love again? Well, news flash Jillian…he gives all of us hard love. You, me, Blane, Lance, even MOM. And his coldness…his disregard for her has made her sick again." I held my breath, waiting for her to finish. "You always give the most deafening premonitions about how he's a horrible father, how he doesn't give a shit about his family but got damn it AT LEAST HE'S AROUND. I haven't seen you in almost a year! Who the hell are you to talk?" There was such contempt in her tone that it grounded me. "You're the heartless one in this family, not dad."
I finally released that breath. "I deserved that."
She wasn't finished though. "All you care about is school, school, school—work, work, work…what about your health?! Yesterday I barely even recognized you! You've gotten so thin…your skin is paler…you don't even look like you anymore. In fact, you haven't been you since high school. You've changed and I don't know what it is but I don't like it. You used to be this eager, wide-eyed little girl who wanted to know everything and do everything. Now you're just a fucking shell. You're a slave to your work, you carpal tunnel everything around you. What happened to you Jillian?!"
…I can't really say.
No, I really can't say. Not because I was scared of what he'd do to me. I was scared of what he'd do to her.
How would I tell my sister that I'd been tormented, both verbally and physically since I was 16 years old? How do you spin that? How do I explain that I never told anyone out of fear that he'd rebel, out of fear that he'd hate me even more than he already did…out of fear that I'd be killed?
I thought on it for a moment. I didn't care to explain why I had to go. I just had to go. I couldn't stay in Seattle anymore. It was a fairly big city…but who was I kidding—he'd find me. It had only been one day I was back and somehow I managed to run into him, and to no avail—he still hates me. I thought I was stronger now but nothing has changed. I needed to leave before I lost more than my dignity. Staying would be submitting to my own downfall. I just wanted to go back to my lonely, quiet apartment and cry until I couldn't anymore. Then I'd go back to school and throw myself into my work. I'd be happier that way, surely. It's kept my mind occupied so far.
I puffed up my chest, preparing my bullshit statement, piecing it together in the back of my mind. "Life happened to me, Jane. I can't be constantly putting it on hold."
"Constantly? When have you ever put your life on hold for anyone? It's all about you. It always has been. Get out of my sight." She said quickly, holding her hand up to her face as she averted her gaze. "Get the fuck away from me!"
I turned around without another word and hastily made my way to the lobby. I was ready to leave. I couldn't take the pressure, it took precedence even over the sheer amount of guilt and sadness that I felt from leaving my own mother in her time of need. I was convinced that my safety was priority 1 though, which is why I willed my legs to keep moving forward, even has my heart told me to stop and turn around.
"Ziggy? Where are you going?" An arm extended in front of me, halting me in place. I looked up and was met with a very confused looking Blane. His eyes narrowed when he saw my face. "Why do you look like you're about to cry?" He asked.
He was holding a donut box with a tray of coffee cups on top, balancing them both effortlessly. I rubbed my tired eyes as I looked up at him. "Blane."
He smiled down at me. "I've been looking for you, munchkin. Jane said you got in yesterday, but I just barely missed you. I think you got here when I left."
"I've kind of been running all over the place." I explained. "Lance and I went to get flowers earlier today."
"Well where are you headed now? Forget something?"
I shook my head, suddenly feeling a bit dizzy. I bit down on my lip and mustered up the courage. "No, I'm…going back to California."
My brother blinked a few times, seeming to have no expected that response at all. "I don't understand."
"I have a lot of work to take care of, and I have classes too. I promise I'll come back next weekend."
He raised a curious brow but his eyes remained steady and patient. "You can't take any time off? Can't get a sabbatical or something?"
"It's just that I'm so close to being done. Maybe a little under two months and I'll be able to submit my research for my degree. I really want to…"
"Ziggy," Blane cut me off, ducking his head down to meet my eyes which I hadn't even noticed were stuck to the linoleum I stood on. "You're not looking at me. Whenever you lie, you don't look me in the eyes."
Shoot.
I hated lying to my big brother. He was one of the best role models in my life, my hero, and he was always just as honest with me as I was with him. He wasn't like Jane or Lance, he was the oldest of us all at 29 and he was ridiculously patient and compassionate. If we needed anything, he was always the person we'd run to. Not being able to just spill my guts to him cut me deep, but I wasn't ready to divulge the information I kept locked deep inside. It wasn't time.
"Can you just trust me when I tell you that I need to go?" I asked as I looked up at him.
He was full on confused now, but instead of asking me why, he caught me off guard "Before I say yes, let me ask you you trust yourself?"
If that wasn't a loaded question, then I don't know what is. How can I even properly respond to that? I didn't know. Silence stretched between us for the longest time as neither of us broke eye-contact.
Finally I lost my stamina, breaking under the pressure. "I'm still figuring that out. Whether or not I can trust myself. When I figure it out, you'll be the first to know."
"I'm not your enemy, Ziggs. We have a lot of shit, on top of more shit that we have to trudge through as people before we finally figure out who we are. No one says that you have to do that alone. If you ever need anything…anything…I'm here, you know that. If you have to go, then go…I won't say anything. But you need to understand that this—" He pointed to his feet. "This is home. This is where you will find completion…the place you're always trying to escape from."
I let his words sink in and once again I found myself rubbing my eyes to quell the stinging. "Mom…"
"Would understand." He cut me off abruptly. I just stared at him for a long while as he searched my face for a clue. "Mom supports your dreams more than anyone in the whole family. She'd never keep you from them."
I choked out a laugh. "Why are you such a shrink?"
He made a weird face. "I have a psych degree."
I rolled my eyes, suddenly remembering that yes, technically…he is a shrink minus the license. "Doesn't make how honest and right you are any less annoying."
He just shrugged at that. "What do you want to do?" He asked.
For the first time in my life I didn't have an answer for him. "I don't know."
"When you figure it out, we'll be here." He sighed and then moved from in front of me, allowing me clearance to leave as he left me standing alone.
If this were a simpler world I would leave school and move back home to take care of my mother without hesitation, but this was not that world. This world housed an evil that I could not extinguish, a lingering hatred that I could not quell, and nearly 20 years of longing that I refused to face head-on. I left because I didn't want to deal with it anymore, I was weak—I'm still weak and he's too strong. Not just physically, but psychologically as well, he trumps me in every way. He terrified me.
But there was more to it than that.
It wasn't merely hate that fueled Theodore Grey, there was this need that radiated from him, this pressing urge to eradicate my very existence. He's told me since day one that he hated me, reminded me every day since, and even as he used it as his crutch he still clung to me. He isolated me, made me a pariah, got everyone else to hate me as well and tore me down even though I wasn't that high up to begin with.
Plus there was the fact that he affected the hell out of me. He drove me crazy in every way. Sure he was outrageously gorgeous, but that was just the surface of who he was. He had layers that I couldn't describe with any words that I knew. He was just…different. Even without his cruel, abusive ways there had always been something incredibly profound about him.
Years passed and I let it all fade behind me, but I never bothered to even try and understand why. I didn't want to know. I just wanted to be free, and moving away was the only out that I saw.
Of course it's the only out, but is it truly the out that you want?
…Again. I don't know.
I still needed to figure it out.
xxx
One week later…
I felt a looming presence as I sat in the cafeteria Friday afternoon, having just finished my lunch and preparing myself for what was to come. Not really thinking too much of it, I glanced up and was greeted by Carlos and Yessi sitting opposite me at the table with their trays.
"What are you reading?" Yessi asked as she leaned over the table to get a better view of the cover I'd had my face buried in. "Tale of Two Cities?" She scoffed and then settled back in her seat. "I couldn't make it past the first chapter of that snooze-fest."
Carlos agreed. "Couldn't make it past the first two pages."
I closed my book and gave them my full attention, most of it masked with sarcasm and humor. "You guys. I don't really know what it is you're trying to do here…" I gestured around the table. "But I'm trying really freaking hard to not panic about this evening."
Carlos made a weird face as he stared at me. "Why would you be panicking? Did something go wrong with your cultures?"
"No…" I muttered.
"What's the problem then?" Yessi pushed. "There's no way they'll turn down your thesis. You've worked way harder than all of us combined."
"Obscure reference." Carlos butt in. Yessi promptly shut him down with a hand to his pouty face.
"I have a lot going on in here right now." I said as I pointed to my temple. "Just trying to organize it all. File and ligate." I mumbled aimlessly, staring off at nothing in particular.
They looked between each other and then back at me again with confused expressions on their faces. I went through the thoughts in my head over and over again, the million strands of baseless data, pointless ends, rattling nonsense. Counted to 100 about 100 times.
Anything to keep my mind off of this evening. Anything to stop me from changing my mind about the conclusion I've chosen. Anything to make this nagging feeling in my gut to go away.
xxx
"Let's see…Jillian Pierce?"
"Here!" I stood abruptly from my seat at the back of the lab. Nervously, I fumbled to the front of the room amongst the other candidates who stood beside me. "I'm…me. Jillian Pierce." I said messily, cursing in my head at how stupid I sounded there.
"Yes…" He said and then wrinkled his thin nose. "Eh…Right." He paused between words quite a bit, his voice lazy and tired. "Alright, yes you're applying for your Ph.D in…" He scanned his form before looking up at me, "Microbiology?"
"Yes sir,"
"We've reviewed your thesis and it's been approved. You'll be allowed to submit your final—" He began but I was already over the moon, hearing only every other thing he said.
I reached out for his hand and took it in mine, shaking it furiously. "Thank you so much, professor! Thank you."
He pulled his hand away and gave me a funny look. "Let me finish,"
"Yes, sorry, sir—yes." I stuttered before readjusting my glasses and pushing my hair behind my ears.
"Uh," He squinted at his clipboard. "We can offer you $25,000 in funding until the end of July of the following year…You'll need to submit a notarized list of your findings by the end of the week, and you'll be awarded your degree."
"Thank you so much, sir! Really."
"You'll be transferred to the University of Washington and paired with Arthur McAvoy to complete your research, effective immediately. Alright…next—"
I held up my hand, "Wait a second, Professor Luther hold on—" I had to gather my thoughts. "I don't…what? University of Washington? I've been at Berkeley for 3 years, sir, my intention was to earn my degree here. I don't understand why I'm being transferred?"
Luther's chubby cheeks puffed out as I began my bickering. He was clearly not in the mood. "Is there a problem, Miss Pierce?" He asked exasperatedly.
No, not really. I wasn't necessarily disappointed of this turn of events, I was just confused as to why it was happening.
He explained, "You'll still be continuing the same research, just not here…you've completed earning your degree from Berkeley seeing as the majority of your work has been done here. You'll just be working it in a different place alongside a brilliant colleague who shares your research as well. Besides, the funding for your doctorate has been sponsored by a foundation based in Seattle. Also, to my knowledge, your undergraduate work was conducted in Seattle…which is why the committee assumed that you would be fine with this." He was looking through his clipboard, no doubt at my record which most likely included my undergrad information.
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I shook my head once, willing my mouth to move as I glanced back at the confused and annoyed faces of my peers. Everyone was waiting to hear if their thesis had been accepted and right now I was holding up the stressful, anxiety-filled line. "I see…and….hypothetically of course—" I said with a nervous, joking tone. "What would happen if I were to refuse?"
"You'll be denied graduation and have to choose another field. If you choose to not go you'll have no choice but to start a new thesis and that will set you back another 2 to 3 years." He said dryly.
My skin ran cold. No way.
Luther's bored face quickly morphed into an annoyed one. "Next—Martha Sticks?"
I had to get out of this room. When I got into the hallway I pushed my back against the wall and slid down onto the floor, my face planted firmly in my hands. The smile that threatened to tear my face apart couldn't be sated. How is this even possible? What did I do to get so lucky so fast? My hands were shaking from anticipation.
I have to probably be, at this moment, the luckiest woman alive.
xxx
Back at my apartment that day, I had a new mission. Getting rid of all the food in my house and packing.
I was stuffing my face with whatever I could find in my pantry, refrigerator, and cabinets. I didn't have much food just sitting around my house seeing as I was your typical slummish grad student who ordered take-out for every meal.
I heard footsteps behind me as I sat at the couch with my arm around a carton of rocky road ice cream. "What the fuck?" Ash squealed loudly.
I snapped my head back and gave her a weird look before swiftly turning back around, snatching a couple of Oreos from the packet on my couch and shoving them in my mouth. I grabbed the remote control to my television and turned the volume up as loud as it would go before Ash snatched the device from my hands and turned it off completely.
She wrestled me for the carton of ice cream, "Jill! Let the ice cream go!" I growled before finally giving up and allowing her to confiscate the nearly empty box from me. "I go to the bathroom for one minute, come back and you're trying to induce anaphylactic shock on yourself? Why are you stuffing your face?!"
"Because I'm stressed, Ash—that's why. Also, I don't want to waste food." I snapped before ripping a Twizzler between my teeth.
She grabbed the bag of candy away from me and tossed it on the coffee table. Then she sat down beside me, a worried look on her face. "What are you stressed about?"
"Well let's see, my mother has cancer, my sister disowned me and probably hates me now, and I have another year of research to do before I can get my doctorate." I said sarcastically.
Ash gave me a warning look. "Am I the person you're angry with? I don't think so, so cool your jets…and put the candy down."
"I didn't realize that I needed permission to eat my food in my own house. Pardon me." I groaned, throwing my head back against the couch.
"Why are you stressed out? I thought you wanted to move back home for your mom?"
"I mean…I do, but…"
"But?"
"But I'm—"
Ash looked so confused and even a little bit annoyed. "…You're?"
"I was going to turn them down, Ash." I said finally, and then turned to face her.
She shook her head. "What do you mean?"
"I wasn't going to stay in California. I had already planned to move back to Seattle last week. The day I got back to my apartment I decided. I thought about it a lot. But now…I can have both ends of the stick. I get to go home and help take care of my mother, and I don't have to give up my work. It's almost too good to be true…?"
Ash slapped a cookie out of my hand. I hadn't even noticed I was still eating. It was all just being shoveled into me involuntarily. "Jill who cares? None of that matters anymore. What you did, or what you were going to do. You've just been handed an it! Roll with it! Now get up, let's get you packed like you asked me to come here and do. I' m not going to sit around eating junk food with you all day."
I really wasn't in the mood to pack at the moment. Also, I didn't ask her to come over to my house and help me pack…she volunteered. "I changed my mind. I'll start packing tomorrow."
She grabbed my shoulders and shook me hard. "Your flight leaves tomorrow. Get up! You are way too pretty to be slouching around like a vegetable and ruining your perfect figure with all this crap."
I snorted then grabbed my bag of candy from the table. "Pretty. Yeah right. Oh definitely…my pasty skin and lack of personality is just stunning."
My head wandered over to where Ash stood near the arm of the couch, staring down at me as if I'd just slapped her. "You're kidding, right?"
I blinked around, confused and unable to pinpoint what exactly was befuddling her. "Kidding about what?"
"You know this has actually bothered me for the longest time. Jill…do you seriously not realize how pretty you are?" That statement caused me to reel back, an amused expression on my face.
"Well thank you dear." I feigned gratitude and then rolled my eyes. I looked up at her as I chewed on some almond filled M&M's, the cracking sound between my teeth filling the silence that swelled the room.
"Wow, this is fascinating. What bliss it must be to be drop-dead gorgeous and not know it." Ash scratched her head, her other hand planted on her hip as she watched me. "I mean sure you dress like a homeless person and it wouldn't kill you to brush your hair every now and then, but other than that…geez Jill, there's humble and then there's just plain ignorant. You're model worthy."
I couldn't have been any less interested in what she was saying. My face was in a resting position of boredom, lids heavy. Friends are supposed to tell you that you're pretty, that's what friends do. I went all through middle school and most of high school without even kissing a boy. Guys weren't into me. No boy ever approached me, not for school dances, dates, or even in a friendly way. The closest I ever got to dating a guy was my freshman year—Tony Fletcher. We went on one date and the next day he told me that it wasn't going to work out and then he completely ghosted me. Cementing the idea that I was not only physically unattractive but had an uninteresting personality as well.
I look like a potato and sometimes I'm too depressed to even look at my own reflection. I'm not pretty, I'm probably not even average and I'm fine with that. My looks didn't matter to me because I had brains—that's what was getting me places.
I was always Ziggy; Jane and Blane's doofy little sister with the glasses and the perfect grades. My older siblings were the attractive ones, they both exuded confidence. Jane has to practically beat the men off with a stick and Blane…is just a whore. I love him to death, but he's much too aware of how good-looking he is and abuses it often.
Me? A model? Is my friend actually mental?
"Yeah, I'm sure that if Vogue ever needs a lanky, weird-looking pasty redhead on their cover I'll be the first person they call." I mumbled hatefully before flipping the television back on again.
She stormed over to the TV and ripped the power cord from the wall. "You need to pack…now!"
"I don't want to."
"If you don't pack I'll do it for you, and I think we both know how badly that will turn out." I stiffened in my curled up position on the couch as she disappeared behind me, heading towards my bedroom. "Okay, Ash—let's just be cool! We're all friends here."
"I wonder how many shirts I can fit in this one compartment." She teased, her voice travelling through my small apartment.
"Fine! I'm up, okay. Look! I'm up. Don't start cramming things into my suitcases haphazardly!"
xxx
Blane and Lance picked me up from the airport. The car ride was riddled with lingering stares and a cough here and then. Also, Blane didn't like to listen to the radio, so we had to make awkward conversation all the way to the house.
"I can't believe you actually came back." Blane said as he looked at me in the rearview. When he caught my slightly offended expression he immediately corrected himself. "I mean…you know I love you Ziggy but you're just like dad when it comes to work. It trumps all other things, right?"
"Jane said—" Lance began but Blane swiftly cut him off.
"Shutup Lance." He said matter-of-factly and then glared in his direction.
I rolled my eyes. "I'm sure it was something heady and not PG-13."
"She said you weren't family anymore and called you a heartless hobgoblin." Lance turned around in the passenger seat and smiled at me on the last word. "Do you know what a hobgoblin is?"
I narrowed my eyes. "Do you know that I don't care?"
He ignored that and explained anyway. "A really big nosed ugly, stupid troll looking thing. Quite frankly, I think she was on to something there."
I burst out into laughter when Blane delivered a swift blow to the middle of his chest, causing him to lean forward quickly and hit his head on the dashboard. "FUCK YOU!" Lance managed, sounding completely out of breath…wind knocked out of him.
"Well…my day has been made." I chuckled.
"As I was saying, really appreciate you coming home to take care of mom."
Lance finally sat up in his seat, seeming to have regained his fighting spirit. "She said that she's still going to school, though. How is she supposed to help with mom if she's working all the time?"
"I'm only working about 20 hours and I don't have any classes. I should have more than enough time to be around and be useful." I explained, having already checked my schedule earlier today.
"Well isn't that mighty convenient." He grumbled and then rolled his clear green eyes.
"You know sometimes it baffles me the way you never shut the hell up Lance." Blane said, completely exasperated.
"You know what baffles me? The way you're almost 30 and you've never even had a steady girlfriend before. Scared of commitment bro?"
"This is coming from the 3rd year who still doesn't even have a fucking major yet? You want to get on my ass about commitment?" Blane's tone was straining as he glared over to where Lance had a shit-eating grin on his face.
Lance loved…and I mean—loved—riling Blane up. And quite frankly, no one else in the family could do it the way he did. It was usually all fun and games with the two of them, but I could tell that for once his patience was beginning to slip. I sat in the back seat, cheek resting on one fist as I stared out the window, watching the highway disappear behind us.
"2nd year." Lance corrected. "And what the fuck do I even need school for? I'm rich."
"Correction dipshit—Dadand Momare rich. You don't have a penny to your name, kid. You've never worked a day in your life. And if you don't figure out what to do with your life soon, dad is going to disown your sorry ass and kick you the hell out of his house."
"You're wasting your time Blane. I've spent hours upon days trying to tilt that windmill." I said tiredly.
Blane looked at me through the rear mirror again. "Ziggs. You're going to be working at UDub starting Monday right?"
I gave him a wary look. "Yeah?"
"And Lance also goes to UDub." He continued, and I still wasn't following him exactly.
"I'm aware."
He gestured to Lance with his chin. "Why don't you give numb nuts here a tour of your job, show him what you're working on? Maybe it'll…I don't know…inspire him?"
"Uh…what?" I said with what I'm sure was a very dreadful expression on my face.
"Come on, Ziggs." He encouraged me, a desperate look in his wide blue eyes that looked just like our mom's. "Please?"
I smiled nervously and shook my head a bit. "I don't understand what I did wrong, why are you punishing me?"
"You're being punished?" Lance scoffed and we both ignored him.
"Blane, I can't stress enough how I would rather chew and swallow glass than babysit an overly-aggressive unmotivated man-child."
"I'm sitting right here. Do I even have any say in this?" Lance asked dryly.
"Shut the fuck up." Blane said swiftly, pointing a warning finger in his direction while still keeping his eyes on the road. "When you pay bills, then you can have a say in something."
Then he looked at me again, his eyes pleading for my cooperation. It was a hard thing having to say no to Blane when he's never really turned me down for a favor. However, just the mere thought of having to dragging my pothead man-whore baby brother around all day made my head hurt and I was already developing a migraine.
I sighed dejectedly, but after a long stretch of awkward silence gave in. "Fine, but I have conditions."
Lance glanced back at me, an amused and cocky look on his face. "Conditions?" He reiterated quietly.
"First condition: You do what I say, when I say, and exactly the way I tell you to do it. Second: Do not touch anything without my permission unless you want to lose a hand or burn off your eyebrows. And lastly: Keep the rude and condescending remarks to an absolute minimum, understand? I can't do it Monday, cause it's my first day and I'd rather not make a bad first impression, so Wednesday."
"Trust me, you won't have to worry about me breaking any of those rules because I'm not shadowing you." Lance muttered.
Blane cut him off. "You are though, or I'm going to convince dad to cut you off financially. Meaning no Aspen next month."
"What the fuck is your problem?" He huffed. "Just because you're miserable I also have to be miserable?"
"You think I'm miserable?!" Blane scoffed, his tone hysterical and disbelieving. "Wanting to make a living for yourself instead of mooching off your parents into your late 20's isn't what disparity is Lance—you're delusional!"
"Maybe I do have goals—you don't know!"
I rolled my eyes. "Shall I buy you a dictionary, Lance? By your actions, you seem to not know what a goal is."
Lance flashed me an annoyed face again. "What's with the third degree? Mom never gives me half the crap that the two of you spit at me on the daily."
Blane interjected, "You honestly don't think that mom is worried about you?! She tells me all the time about how she's scared that you're going to grow old and die alone as some pot head hippie…not in those words exactly, but—you get my point."
I was beginning to understand that we were giving Lance a really hard time, but if he were even a little motivated, even the tiniest bit—he'd be a textbook genius. He simply seems to not care about himself and never really has. I mean, Lance is 20, not 30—he's got time. The problem is that he doesn't have a direction and that scares us all, especially since we're a very work-oriented family.
My mother and father built their construction company from the ground up with all the blood, sweat, and tears of a thousand ages and everyone telling them they were crazy. This was well before even I was born. Our parents have sacrificed more than Lance will ever really understand. As far as he's concerned, dad is a billionaire and always has been and always will be. For Lance, hard work has never been and never will be a necessity for him. To an extent this is correct, but he still needs to do something. Hell—he could skateboard for a living, my father honestly wouldn't give a crap—as long as he was passionate about it.
"If I go to her stupid nerd job will you leave me alone?" Lance asked, his voice tired.
Blane didn't hesitate. "Yes."
"Fine, but here's my condition…" And then he turned in his seat to look back at me. "I get to dissect a frog."
I blinked a couple of times. "…I'm sorry, what?" I said with a small smile.
"I want to cut a frog open and look at its organs." He elaborated. "Aren't you a biologist? You don't know what dissection is?"
I ignored that last part. "Lance you're not dissecting anything. My job isn't a science museum and you're not coming to have fun."
"So you admit your job is boring!" He lilted, pointing at me.
I bit down on the inside of my cheek, willing myself to calm down. In the rearview, Blane gave me a huge, toothy smile. "Welcome home, munchkin."
xxx
"Put it down." I muttered, still looking in the microscope.
I heard my brother grunt and then put down whatever the heck he'd just picked up. I raised my head and pushed my glasses up and over my head, looking back at where he stood at one of the work benches.
"I thought I told you not to touch anything. I'm pretty sure that was condition number 2."
He held his hands up in a surrendering fashion before coming over to me, pulling up a stool and settling down right beside me. I resumed what I was doing then, trying to make sense of the mutation beneath my slides. They were correlating decently, but something was off about specimen C, it seemed to be…reverting?
"Can I see?" Lance asked and after a moment I sat back and pushed away from the microscope, allowing him access. "What am I looking at?"
"Staphylococcus." I said dryly.
He looked up at me, his eyes wide. "What is that?" He asked quietly.
"An incredibly complicated,catalaseformicated bacterium."
"What does it do?" He asked as he went back to looking at it.
"Causes staph infection." I mumbled and then chuckled when he quickly pushed away from the table.
"Calm down. This isn't nearly enough to infect a human, plus it's embalmed between two pieces of glass." I rolled back over to the microscope and scribbled some notes on my pad before continuing my browsing of the slide.
"What exactly do you do with this stuff?"
"We use the mutated bacteria to create antibiotics and vaccinations." I explained in a bored and distracted way.
"I'm no mogul, but isn't that super expensive?"
"You could be a mogul if you actually gave it a shot," I said sarcastically. "And yes, it is expensive, extremely so. What of it?" I stopped and pushed away from the table, glancing over to him. "How did you know that making vaccinations was expensive?"
"Documentary." He said simply.
I cracked a smile. "Documentary? You watched a documentary? Were you high?"
He didn't hesitate. "Completely stoned."
"Okay…" I said absently. "For my dissertation, when my work was received and commended, I attracted the attention of several sponsors. They bid for my research, and whoever bids the highest funds the research that I conduct, therefore I'm able to continue."
"So, what do you do with the funding?"
I shrugged and re-adjusted my glasses. "Pretty much what I'm doing now. Mutating bacteria with the hope of finding more effective treatments to diseases."
"Sounds boring."
I just stared at him for a while, completely void of expression. "Does anything excite you, Lance?"
"Weed…pussy?" He muttered. I grunted and stood from my chair, moving over to the cabinets at the back of the lab. When I returned he was on his cellphone tapping out a text message and sending it.
"What the fuck is that?!" Lance said in disgust as I held a tray with a gibbon's brain on it, cut in half right down the sagittal plane. "Is that…is that a brain?!"
"Yep. It's the brain of an adult gibbon." I smiled widely, loving how creeped out he looked. I set the dissection tray down in front of him on the table.
"Why are you? What are you?" He stuttered, confused and flabbergasted.
"You said you wanted to dissect something. There's tumor in this brain. I want you to find and remove it." I placed a scalpel and a pair of tweezers down beside the tray and said, "Go nuts."
Finally, I sat back down in front of my microscope to continue my work.
He said, "How the hell am I supposed to find a tumor in here? It's huge!"
"Use your imagination." I whispered as I adjusted the powers until the image enlarged. I could see spores beginning to form. Not good.
"It smells like burning."
"It's formaldehyde and I would advise against inhaling too much of it. It isn't poisonous but it'll give you a headache like you wouldn't believe in large quantities."
"Jesus Christ." He breathed and I could hear him begin to dig through the neural tissue in search for his mark.
A while later the door clicked open. I looked up and saw Arthur, my new colleague trotting into the room with his head buried in a manila folder. "Arthur, evening."
He looked up at me and his eyes wandered over to Lance, who was still digging through the brain. "You're early, Dr. Pierce."
"I had some things to check with my cultures. And Arthur, please call me Jill." I insisted.
"Right, uh—" He kind of gestured to the preoccupied body beside me.
"I'm sorry, this is my younger brother, Lance." I slapped his shoulder and he looked up before offering a small wave.
"Why is he cutting into a gibbon brain?"
"I told him to remove the tumor…to keep him out of my hair for a while." I admitted sheepishly.
Arthur made an awkward face and clenched his teeth together. "Yeah, Kelly, from the neurobiology department already removed that tumor this morning. It's in this jar here," He went over to one of the shelves and held up a jar. Sure enough there was the tumor, floating around in formaldehyde.
I cleared my throat. "Oops."
"Don't feel bad. I wasn't going to find it even if it was in here." Lance grumbled and then pushed the tray away.
Arthur came up and shook Lance's hand. "You pre-med?" He asked and I had to hold back my laughter.
"If only." I muttered under my breath.
"No, I mostly just go to class, sleep, wake up and then go home." He said enthusiastically and I couldn't help but hide my face in my hand.
"He's still undecided." I added.
"Well what are you leaning towards?" Arthur asked.
Lance thought about that for a moment. "I don't know, is there a profession that warrants not doing anything for a living?"
"Yes, it's called being homeless." I said and Lance flashed me a big smile, completely unaffected.
It was apparent that Lance and I had made Arthur a bit uncomfortable with our bickering, so he quickly moved to change the subject. "Uh, that's right Jill I have the reports from our foundation if you ever wanna take a look at that. Just got them a few hours ago." He said and then extended the folder to me.
I took it before placing it down beside my notepad. "I'll take a look at it in a bit, thanks Arthur."
"How much funding do you have?" Lance asked, looking between us both.
Why the heck do you care?
I eyed him suspiciously. "About twenty grand, why?"
"$20,000?" He asked, his tone surprised. "Is that a lot?"
"No." Arthur and I said simultaneously. "It's average, maybe a little below average when you consider how much time and effort goes into it all. But not everyone has the time and know-how to invest in such a hit-or-miss field like ours, so we were lucky to have received any funding at all." Arthur explained.
"So who's the sucker gambling on you?"
I grabbed the folder then, prepared to open it and take a look but froze at what echoed through the lab room next. "Grey Enterprises."
