Deadly Ambitions

The librarian locked the sliding doors with a low click, an emphasis to the glare he was already giving from the other side of the glass. I rolled my eyes. It's his own damn fault for not flickering the lights fifteen minutes prior to closing. And for being too lazy to do the patrol like the other librarian usually does to start cajoling us out of our hiding spots so she can lock up right at midnight. 

Zipping my bag, maybe a tad aggressively, I swung it back around, letting it create a warm bubble against my back while the rest of me freezed from the icy October night. The kind of night that freezed my tears to my cheeks. 

With a heavy sigh that burned like I was sucking on a mint, I shoved my hands deeper into my coat pockets. I breathed like that four more times. I would never fall asleep if I didn’t calm down. Be up all night with my spiraling thoughts. Again. If I couldn’t understand the amino sequence for the last three hours, I doubted lying awake in bed was going to miraculously cause it to click. It hasn’t worked yet. 

Another icy breath in. On the exhale my shoulders relaxed only to jerk back up at a strange sound. A rustling? I didn’t know. Frozen, I listened for it while looking around me. The normally beautiful campus was eerie as shit at night. The brick and ivy buildings that exuded academia and excellence came across as more gothic when out of the daylight. Shivering, I picked up my pace. Hell, the cold and the long hours staring at my textbooks was fucking with me. I needed to get to bed. 

My breath hitched, burning my lungs, when the noise came again. Probably just leaves. There were so many fallen leaves already and maintenance hadn’t started raking yet. And with the damn wind tonight, it probably was just that. 

Relief eased off me like a heavy coat once I made it to my dorm. I couldn’t tell by the end if I had heard the noise another three more times, or if I was just imagining it. To my biggest surprise, I had fallen asleep easily that night. Waking up though, well that sucked. It was like being taken by surprise with a punch to the gut, waking up to remember that you didn’t understand the day’s lesson. My anxiety compounded on itself as I dragged myself through my classes, building up to Dr. Holowitz’s night class. 

Dr. Holowitz was going to make or break my entire future. His classes were coveted, often filling up seconds after registration opens. Not only because there were so few, but because the top students from his classes often were invited to internships at Montaug Pharmaceutical where he co-ran at least two of the labs renowned for inventing life-changing drugs. I needed that internship. 

“Miss Landon,” Dr. Holowitz greeted, holding the door open for me as we had reached the building at the same time. 

He knew my name. I prayed to whatever higher being cared that my smile came across as cool and collected, and not the internal panic and thrill shaking my organs like they were on a rickety roller coaster. 

“Your last essay impressed me,” he said, walking side by side with me. My stomach went through another loop. “Though, continue practicing and studying, your math was a little off in some places.” With that he blew up my tracks, sending me free-falling while he entered the lecture hall with his usual aloof greeting. 

“Excuse me,” came a low, and slightly annoyed, voice from behind me. 

I didn’t even look to see who I was blocking, just uprooted my feet and rushed to my seat. 

“Ah, good. Class, please meet your new TA, Alexander Reyes.” The TA looked like he could’ve been a stock image for academic elitists. His clothes were simple, gray slacks and a black sweater, but they looked like they would cost me three months of wages from my campus bookstore job. Maybe if they were on sale. “He will be taking over,” Holowitz continued, “after some unforeseen circumstances with Mr. Sullivan. Would you care to introduce yourself, Alex?”  Dr. Holowitz was already looking down at his podium, reorganizing his notes for the lecture today. 

“Thank you.” My cheeks burned, realizing that I had fucked up my first impression with me blocking the door. “There’s not much to tell. I’m obviously a graduate student here. But I’ll also be spending half my week working at the lab at Montaug. So check my schedule as it will be slightly limited.” 

“Thank you, Mr. Reyes.”

With a nod, he climbed up to the back of the lecture hall while Dr. Holowitz began his lesson. He knew my name.

****

“Are you following me, Miss Landon?” Alexander Reyes stopped and turned around so suddenly, I barely was able to stop myself from running right into him. 

“No.” I blushed, to my greatest annoyance. “You are hard to catch though.”

He spread his arms out as though to say, you got me now. 

“I need your help.” At that, he crossed his arms. My stupid blush deepened. I had never felt so little and so stupid as I did under his gaze. “With the elimination reaction.” His one brow raised. “For O-Chem?” I clarified. “You know what, never mind.” Grinding my teeth, I spun on my heels and marched off. 

“L-32.”

I twisted around with a frown.

“Nine. Tonight,” he added before leaving me alone in the cold basement hallway, late for my shift at the bookstore. 

****

It was embarrassing how long into my four hour shift it took to realize L-32 was probably one of the study rooms at the library. I was completely banking on this assumption being right. After closing the store at 8:30 and rushing through inventory, I had eight minutes to run across campus and find the room. 

There was that noise again. I went to turn around to look and instead threw out my arms, stopping myself from wiping out from the damp leaves littering the stone walkway. 

“Damn leaves,” I grumbled. 

The old church bell tolled the hour, announcing my lateness.

“Shit.” I dashed towards the library, the only building glowing in the pitch dark. 

Ignoring the nasty looks as I ran for the stairs and then crashed out of it, I gasped for air while looking for the room. 

“You’re late,” Reyes drawled when I slapped against the doorframe, yanking myself to a stop. I opened my mouth to explain only for him to cut me off. “Sit,” he nodded at the chair across from him. “Why are you here?”

My bag fell off my shoulder with a thud. I frowned at him. “To review elimination reactions?” My stomach sank and suddenly I couldn’t tell if my cheeks burned from coming in from the cold. 

“You know how they work. At least I can safely assume you understand them well enough to continue to hold one of the top spots in class.” 

Before I could stop myself from looking more like an idiot, I gasped into an uncertain smile. Yet, something lodged in my chest.

“So I’ll ask again, why are you here?”

I eased into the seat, taking my time to compose myself. “Because I don’t want to be one of the top spots. I want to be the top spot. I want that internship. And I will do whatever it takes to get it.”

“Okay.” Reyes leaned back, his mouth twisting into a knowing smirk. “Then let’s get started.”

****

“Let’s practice some Diels-Alder reactions,” Alex announced as I entered our study room. “Double check these bonds to see if they will give us the reactions listed at the top of each page.” He passed a pile of loose printed out pages to me, initiating our usual routine. 

“Done,” I announced, sliding the papers across the table. 

“Did you double check?”

“Of course.” I bit my tongue, hoping to hide my annoyance. He asked this every time and I always double check myself. I wasn’t an idiot. 

Raising his brow in his usual way of silently questioning me, he picked up the pile and leaned back into his seat. With his feet propped up on the table, he looked over my work. 

I rolled my pencil between my fingers as a way to not tap it and annoy Alex again. While waiting, my eyes began to go unfocus until I noticed it. Blinking and then rubbing my eyes to ensure I was seeing it right, I stared at the very faint watermark on the back of the last page. I frowned. Like that was going to make the watermark suddenly discernable. 

“Al—”

“Looks good. Good job tonight.” He tucked my work into his sleek, black backpack. “Until next time,” he threw out before leaving me alone and confused. 

The walk back to my dorm was frustrating. God I wished I had one of those photographic memories. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t quite picture what the watermark had looked liked. It's like knowing a vase was supposed to be on the table, but couldn’t recall what color it was. 

Again I heard that strange noise. I registered it before shoving it to the farthest recesses of my mind, too focused on forcing my brain to supply me with an image it obviously didn’t have.

****

Waiting another three days for our next meetup was grueling. Over the course of those days I had flipped and flopped on whether I had seen what I thought I had seen at least a thousand times. 

Tapping my pencil against the table top, I glanced up at the clock again. Was he late? He’s never late. Did something happen? Did I do something wrong?

Right as I was about to combust, he ambled in, like time means nothing to him.

“I have more Diels-Alder reactions for us to practice,” he said, of course not acknowledging his tardiness. But then I forgot to care when he pulled out a fresh stack of papers. 

I felt like I was going to burst out of my skin in my attempts to appear normal while checking the reactions on the first page. Honestly, I don’t think I even comprehend what I was doing, I just needed to look like I did until enough time passed. 

Four times I went to move on, but didn’t, afraid Alex would question how fast I had completed the first page. But then what if he thought I was going to slow? Holding my breath, I flipped the page over to start a pile to the side. Normally I just put it to the back of the pile. Not today. Today, I nonchalantly rested my head in my hand so it would look like I was reading the next page when I was actually staring at the back of the first. 

It was there. It was faint. So very faint that someone would probably never notice it unless they were looking, but it was there. 

I gasped.

“Something wrong?” 

I lifted my head and plastered on a grin. “Sorry. Paper cut.” 

Alex narrowed his eyes at my mouth, watching as I feigned sucking the blood. Finally he went back to whatever he was doing on his phone. 

My gaze darted to the paper and the watermark of the Montaug logo. 

What. The. Hell. 

“Olivia?”

“Yes?” I shot up in my seat, like I was caught texting by a teacher. Internally I groaned. 

“Is there a problem with you completing your work?”

That caught my attention. Your work.

“Olivia?”

“Sorry,” I blurted. “Brain’s just a bit fuzzy today. Probably need some more caffeine,” I gave a half-hearted laugh. 

“Do you want to go grab some and come back?”

“Uh, sure. Yeah. Uh, I’ll be right back.” Grabbing my bag, I darted out of the room. 

What the hell. What the hell. What the —

The cold early December air smacked me in the face. Smacking some sense back into me too. I wanted to facepalm myself. He probably just printed it off at Montaug since he usually was coming from interning at the lab before our meetups. Maybe I needed to go to bed a tad earlier tonight instead of supplementing my lack of sleep with caffeine. That’s probably why I kept hearing things and getting so worked up over the stupidest stuff. Yeah, that’s probably it.

****

“You’re fucking using me,” I gasped, staring down in disbelief at today’s practice pages. 

“Hmm?” he hummed, looking up from his phone. 

More clearly I repeated myself. “You’re fucking using me. You’re using me to check your work at the lab. Oh my god. Are you using my suggestions? The ones I pointed out would have been better two weeks ago? And also the week before that? Oh my god.” 

“What the hell are you on about?”

“This!” I waved the paper. “You idiot. Your were too fucking lazy this time to take your name off the bottom.” 

“Shit.” He ripped the paper from my hand, eyes widening as he stared at the bottom. 

I was right. I was fucking right. 

My insides swooped — elated I was right — then fell — devastated I was right. The lazy motherfucker had me doing his work. 

His work.

But what if I went to Dr. Holowitz? Maybe this would be enough proof that I should get the internship spot? I already was doing the work.

My seat clattered to the ground as I stood up. 

“What are you doing, Olivia?”

Ignoring Alex, I bent over to grab my bag. I barely straightened before his hand squeezed around my neck.

“I said, what are you doing, Olivia?”

“How,” I gasped. How did he get around the table so fast?

“I really wish you hadn’t done this, Olivia. I actually liked you.” His breath was strangely cold against my cheek. As cold as the fingers digging into the sides of my neck. I should’ve moved. I should’ve fought back. Yet I stood there, like a rabbit resigned to its fate. Though what he said next knocked me out of my stupor. “We could’ve made a good team. I was actually going to ask you to go to the next level soon.”  

“We still can. You could have told me. We could have figured something out. We can still help each other.” My heart raced, picking up speed with each pacing second we shared the same breath. His eyes darkened. 

“If only. Unfortunately you had to go and spoil it all. And to be honest,” he leaned closer. Like he was going to kiss me. I held my breath, uncertain how to decipher what was going on inside me. “I’ve wanted you for a while now. But then you were more useful doing this. At least you used to be.” 

“What?” I tried to say, but barely found the air to sound out the word. Especially when he snapped his teeth together. My blood turned to ice, recognizing the sound as the one I had been hearing at night.

His fingers slid up along my neck, leaving a trail of shivers. Gripping my chin, he jerked it to the side, exposing my neck. 

“This could have been different,” he said against my neck. Another round of shivers rocked me. “More symbiotic. But you’re too ambitious. And I can’t have you be like Jack Suillivan. Can’t have you be my downfall.”

Something pinched the side of my neck. I couldn’t see what as Alex was holding my head in place with an iron grip. But I heard it. I heard him gulping like when I chug water after a run. And I felt my skin pull taut and relax, taut and relax with each gulp. Yet I couldn’t move. But I could still speak. Barely.

“I hate you, you fucking leech,” I hissed my curse. “I pray you’ll burn for this.”

The pinching at my neck was relieved as Alex chuckled against my skin. “I forgot how young and naive you are.” Lifting his head, he met my eye. His smile was sharp and coated in my blood. “I was doing this way before I became this.”