Chapter 20

CHAPTER 20

"Today, we're in luck," Nick announces from the front of the Learning Centre. We've only just found our seats, tablets at the ready. "And it's a nice change of pace. We're going on a field trip."

"More foraging?" Rav says with a heavy sigh, leaning back in his chair as if he's being crushed by the thought.

" No ," Nick says pointedly. "We'll leave the foraging for when we go on the camping trip to the peninsula next week. This morning I'm taking you to the—drumroll please." He does an exaggerated imaginary one that makes my eyes roll. "The propagation lab."

Oh? I sit up a little straighter. So does everyone else.

That is a nice change.

"Finally," Lauren says tiredly. "I thought we'd never make it over there."

I glance at her. Dark circles ring under her eyes, her face ashy. I look over at Munawar and Rav. They don't look much better. Even Munawar's shirt isn't a fungi-pun. Instead it's the Madrona Foundation's logo, which still features mushrooms, but somehow that's worse. Like he's becoming one of them .

Is this place getting to us all?

If this is what three weeks of fog will do to you, what will three months?

Or is it more than just the weather?

I swallow the pit of uneasiness in my stomach. It's something I'll have to talk to Kincaid about after lunch. I have a session with him, and it will be the first time seeing him since our tryst in his office.

I'm still not sure how I feel about what happened, though I've literally done nothing but think about it.

On one hand, fuck .

It was exactly what I wanted, what I needed. I thought nothing could top my dreams but Doctor Kincaid knew exactly how to fix me. At least in the moment. When I close my eyes I can still feel his tongue inside me, the rough way he held my hips, the fist in my hair. The dirty, thrilling way he obliged my kink, called me his little pet, like I was one of his possessions. I want all of that to happen again, and soon.

But on the other hand…it was hard to ignore the shame in his eyes.

That he crossed a line he didn't want to cross.

That he made a mistake.

Oh, his desire for me was more than apparent.

The way he ate me out with abandon.

The way he was so turned on that he came in his pants, like he was a horny teenager unable to control his hormones, not a neurosurgeon in his late thirties. I have to admit, that was the hottest fucking thing I've seen in a long time.

But he is my doctor.

I am his patient.

He is my teacher.

I am his student.

He says he's the one keeping me safe.

But every moment I'm with him, I feel I'm one step closer to danger.

I'm starting to hate this place and yet I've never felt so… alive .

And yet, as we get up and file out the door, following Nick as he leads us under the cedar boughs, ravens calling from the sky, I feel like death is around the corner. Perhaps not waiting for me, but waiting for someone. I feel it on my skin, like the clammy kiss of the damp air.

It's hard to ignore death when so many people have died here.

I push those thoughts out of my head. Perhaps I'm too morbid for my own good.

The propagation lab is past the maintenance yard and barn, the furthest building west on the property. The walk is fairly wet and muddy since it's been either raining or we've been blanketed by fog for the last few days. Our shoes squelch as we unsuccessfully try to avoid puddles. At least the clouds are moving fast today, a warm breeze coming from the ocean that brings the scent of seaweed at high tide.

Nick swipes his keycard and the door beeps. He pushes it open and flicks on the lights.

"Everyone spread out along the aisles and don't you dare touch anything," he says.

The excitement is palpable as we walk inside. It looks like a greenhouse except all the windows have been blacked out. Thin shafts of light pierce the places where the coverings don't quite reach, illuminating the dust and spores floating in the air. I get the feeling that they are retractable, able to usher in daylight when needed.

Instead of rows of plants, however, there are rows of fungi, some growing from mossy surfaces, others from soil. So many different kinds—bleeding tooth, ghost fungus, stinkhorns, amethyst deceivers. The air is musty with their scents, some sweet, some sour, and the metallic loam of the soil.

Nick is speaking but none of us are listening. It's impossible to corral us, we're like cats and the mushrooms are the catnip. We're spreading out down the aisles, marveling at all the different varieties, some of which are hard to grow outside of mother nature, touching while Nick continues to berate us for doing so.

"Look," Lauren coos, stopping to peer at some parrot waxcaps, elegant green fungi, their surface as shiny as lip gloss. "These are my favorite. I thought I'd have to go all the way to Australia to see them."

But while I see several of my favorites, many of which I still wonder at what magic—or science—Madrona has in order to grow them in such a setting, I don't see their famous Excandesco . I know they've said a few times now that they have struggled to replicate it in the lab, but I was still hoping it would be here. Or at least their attempts at it, though I'm sure they keep that under wraps too.

After a while though, I grow bored. The lab is starting to feel claustrophobic and stuffy. The fact that I can see all the spores floating around, probably remnants of the earth stars that shoot theirs out into the air, makes me a little wary about breathing them in. I know breathing in spores can't hurt you but…I don't know. This place is called a lab, after all. I don't want to take my chances.

"I need to get some fresh air," I tell Nick. "I'll just be outside."

"You okay?" he asks. "Smell can be gnarly, can't it?"

I just give him a close-lipped smile and head over to the door, pushing it open and stepping out into the fresh air. I have to blink at the light for a moment. The greyness feels like the sun after being in such a dark tomb.

I take in a few deep breaths, then my restlessness gets the best of me. I decide to walk to the barn. Though I've heard the goats at all hours and the roosters in the morning, I haven't actually gone to the barn yet, just walked past it.

There's a fenced paddock on one side of it where the goats are grazing, and the chicken run on the other. I lean against the fence and decide to watch the goats for a bit. They're one of my favorite animals, and despite them being all creepy-eyed, I find them super cute and entertaining to watch.

But the moment I lean against the fence the goats all raise their heads to look at me. They bleat and cry and start running in the opposite direction, toward the far corner of the fence.

"What the fuck?" I mutter out loud. Since when do goats hate me? Most animals love me. Maybe they just don't get enough interaction here.

They're experimented on , I remind myself. Remember what Everly said about the testing? They might not be here for goat milk.

I shudder. I have always hated animal testing, even though I know it's necessary in some regards for medical science. Still, it's the worst aspect of getting into any neurobiology field. I know the testing on rats is what helps us develop the drugs that treat things like Alzheimer's, or hell, even Adderall would have been tested on them at first. But it doesn't mean I have to like it.

I decide to head over to the chicken yard instead, feeling the sting of the goat's rejection. The chickens at least run up to me, clucking about.

"I wish I had some food for you," I tell them.

They cock their heads in unison, demanding treats.

Suddenly a god-awful noise fills the air, like nails down my spine. The chickens all cluck at once in alarm.

It sounded like a baby goat but also…not a baby goat.

The wind blows around my hair, this time carrying a chill with it, and I look toward the entrance of the barn from which the sound came. It's dark. Darker than it seemed a couple minutes ago. I can barely see what's inside—some bales of hay, a few stalls.

The bleating shriek sounds again.

I jump.

It's louder now.

It sounds like something is in trouble, and as much as I'm already freaked out, that's something I can't ignore. Even though, as I step into the barn, I feel the darkness close around me. It's physical, like the damp air, a blanket to weigh me down.

A noose.

Go get Nick , I think. Go and tell Nick.

But like all those times before, my body moves without me telling it to. I feel wildly out of control, I'm just one foot in front of the other, going toward the terrible, terrible sound.

My heart is in my throat, my lungs shallow as low tide.

"Are you okay?" I manage to call out as I carefully creep forward into the darkness. Eventually my eyes adjust to the grey light coming in through the windows at the side, but it only deepens the shadows.

And then I see it.

Against the far wall, by the floor, something is writhing.

It's pink.

Shiny and pink and attached to the wall.

At first I think it's like a piglet that's stuck in some kind of web, or like the liquid stuff they use as insulation. Maybe it was stuck behind the wall and it's trying to burst through. My brain is going for the most rational explanations first, trying to make sense of what I'm seeing.

But as I step close and it opens its mouth and lets out another ear-piercing scream, one that cuts to the bone, I realize how horribly wrong I was.

A baby pig stuck in the wall makes sense in this world.

What I'm looking at doesn't make sense.

In any world.

It's a baby goat. Devoid of all skin. Just the pink, red, and deep burgundy layers of muscle, creamy lines of fat. It doesn't have any eyes; instead it has long snaking lines emerging from the sockets, blending into the wall, spreading up it like mold.

The goat thing screams again.

Revulsions slams through me and I vomit. I can't help it.

I throw up right on the concrete floor of the barn, unable to keep it in, unable to understand what I'm looking at, except to know that it's wrong. It's so wrong. My grandmother would be making the sign of the cross right now, swearing that this thing did not come from God, did not come from nature.

The goat doesn't notice. It struggles, the sound wet, sluicing, its bare muscles rippling as it tries to escape its fate. The white filaments coming out of its eyes are coming out of its mouth too, poking out beneath the muscles like snakes.

Mycelia , I think. They're not filaments, they're mycelia.

It's being devoured whole by the fungi.

I'm about to vomit again when suddenly I hear footsteps behind me.

I turn around, hand at my mouth, to see Nick walking toward me. With his face in silhouette, I can't see his expression, but even he is putting me on alert. It's the way he walks. Purposeful. Powerful.

"What is this?" I manage to say, trying to keep from throwing up again. "Nick. This poor baby goat. What's happening to it?"

He stops beside me, and I can finally focus on his face. Gone is the hippie surfer dude who catches the wave breaks not far from here. He's someone else now. Maybe the person he was always underneath.

"Something that you aren't to repeat to anyone else," he says. His brown eyes are hard, his words harder. "You didn't see any of this."

"But what is it?" I exclaim. "What happened to it?!"

He just stares at me. "You need to go back to your cohort and forget you ever saw this."

I shake my head. "I can't. I need to…"

The goat thing screams again.

"Please, just put it out of its misery!" I yell.

"I'll deal with it," he says. "Go back."

But I feel like standing my ground.

"Or what?" I ask.

His eyes narrow. So damn cold. So damn serious. "I'll get Everly and Michael to recite to you the NDA that you signed."

"It never said anything about not talking about the things while we're here!"

"Did you even read it?" he asks with a derisive snort. "I mean it, Sydney. Talk about this and you'll have a lawsuit on your hands. How the fuck are you going to pay for that? You don't have a job, you don't even have a scholarship. You have nothing."

My jaw clenches. Fuck him. He is just a bro in disguise, a corporate asshole underneath.

He jerks his head toward the light, and I go.

I'm both happy to be out of there and yet so fucking disturbed that when I leave the barn, I don't even bother catching up with the other students who have already walked ahead, dispersing for lunch.

I go right to Kincaid's office and bang on the door with my fist until he opens it.

His expression is both guarded and relieved. Happy to see me and yet…not.

"You're early," he says with a raise of his brow.

"Close the door," I say quickly, rushing in and sitting down in the chair, my head in my hands, rocking back and forth like a mental patient.

I hear him close it, then lock it, and he comes over to me, crouching beside the chair, hand on my knee. "Syd," he says softly. "What happened?"

I can tell from the way he says my name that he thinks I had another episode. That I'm going to talk about Farida's ghost, or perhaps another student, or Amani.

I straighten up, moving my hands away. "I saw something just now. In the barn. Nick made me promise not to talk to anyone about it. Said the NDA is enforceable, even here."

"What was it?" he asks, gazing up at me, brow furrowed.

"Was that a lie, what he said about the NDAs?"

"You don't have to worry about that right now," he says calmly, giving my knee a squeeze. "You're allowed to tell me. Tell me what happened. What did you see?"

I take in a deep breath and fill him in, feeling queasy all over again. I can't get the image of the pink creature out of my head.

"What… was that?" I ask.

His face has remained impassive this whole time. Nothing of what I've said has surprised him.

"It sounds like something that belonged to the lab," he says.

"Something that you may have worked on?"

A dark brow arches up. "I have also signed NDAs, Syd."

I give him a dirty look. "Oh. I see. A little hard to trust you when you're not even allowed to be honest with me."

"That's what trust is," he says simply. "It's faith."

"Well, pardon me if I'm not feeling faithful at the moment. Everywhere I look here there's one steaming pile of lies after another."

"Lies in order to protect the foundation," Kincaid says, straightening up. He walks around his desk and sits down, folding his hands in front of him. Back to being my shrink again. "The work here is…" His eyes roam the room as he searches for the words. "Important."

"And mysterious."

The corner of his mouth lifts. "Very much so. We are doing good things here. I may not agree with Everly, Michael, or even Nick half the time, but I wouldn't be here if I didn't think we were making a difference in the world. We have the ability to change disease. To change life. Prevent death."

I cross my arms and lean back in my chair. "You sound like you're reading from the company brochure," I grumble. "Oh, but wait, you're the one who wrote it."

He lets out a dry laugh. "I did."

But I don't find it funny.

"Should I be worried?" I ask.

"About what?"

I shrug, sighing as I drum my nails along the edge of the armrest. "The other day you said I should fear you. Then you ask me to trust you. You ate me out on this very desk, then you do your hardest to avoid me. I can't figure you out. I don't know if you're on my side. I don't know what sides there are."

"I'll never not admire how bold your choice of words are," he says, smiling slightly.

I look at him askew. "That's it? That's all you've got to what I just said?"

He stares at me for a long moment, frowning slightly. "I have much I would like to say, Syd. But much that I can't."

"Ugh, fuck this," I mutter, getting out of my chair. "Fuck you, Mr. Can't Tell Me Shit."

He's quick. He's around the desk and pushing me back against it, his hand at my throat. "Every single thing I do is in your best interest," he says, his voice tense, rough with warning. His eyes blaze like a thunderstorm. "You either trust me or you don't."

I swallow against his palm. "Hard to trust you when you're choking me, doctor."

His nostrils flare and his hand drops away. He clenches his teeth and looks away, though I'm still bracketed against the desk, the edge digging into my ass. My heart beats wildly against my ribs, wanting to provoke him more, push him over the edge so he can choke me, pull my hair, have his way with me again.

"Are you ashamed of what we did?" I whisper.

"No," he says quickly, his gaze snapping to mine. "Not even a little."

I smile slyly, satisfied with that answer. "You know, next time you can come inside me. You don't have to mess up your pants again."

I swear I see his cheeks go pink above his days old stubble. He lets out a small, embarrassed laugh. "You'll never let me hear the end of that, will you? My body acting like I'm in fucking high school again."

"I took it as a compliment," I tell him. "Still, the offer stands."

The levity in his eyes fades like a cloud darkening. "There won't be a next time, Syd."

I nod. For once I don't feel the crush of rejection because I know he's lying.

We are inexorable.

Locked-in.

He steps back from me, and I straighten up.

"Was that our session or am I free to go?" I ask.

He puts his hand at my back and guides me toward the door. "Let's take a rain check. I think you know now that you can talk to me at any time. For now, though, I need to talk to Nick."

My eyes widen with fear as we leave his office. "Are you going to tell him I told you?"

"You'll be fine. You're allowed to tell your doctor anything."

We step outside into the mist. I go one way toward the main lodge, and he goes toward the lab.

Suddenly Clayton steps out from behind a tree.

"You saw it, didn't you?" he says.

He looks fucking awful, and it makes me realize I didn't see him in the lab today, nor have I seen him much over the last few days. His absence has been refreshing, but still I'm a little concerned.

Especially at the wild look in his eyes.

He looks absolutely feral, and not in a good way.

"See what?" I ask uneasily. I look around for a way out and see it in the form of Kincaid who has spotted Clayton and is striding purposefully toward us.

"The experiment," Clayton says. "Sometimes they escape. But you knew that already, didn't you? You've seen them."

Is he talking about the wolf?

Wait. Amani?

"Clayton," Kincaid barks as he gets closer. "I need a word with you."

"Am I in trouble, professor?" Clayton sneers, stepping back.

"You know you're supposed to leave Sydney alone," he says, glancing at me briefly. My heart twists at how possessive and protective he is, yet there's an uneasiness deeper down. I have to wonder if Kincaid already gave him the lecture about following me.

Clayton just laughs. Loud and unhinged.

I can't help but move back.

Something isn't right with him.

I give Kincaid a look like he needs counseling asap but Kincaid only nods at me in return.

"You better go, Sydney," he says grimly.

I stand there, looking between the two of them, before I nod and walk off.

When I reach the lodge, I look over my shoulder, but they've both disappeared.