Bloodstained

Bury it, Venena told herself. You can’t deal with this now.

Trouble was, Dr. Winslow looked so much like her that Ven hadn’t been able to get the memory out of her head. It started a week ago, when the collaboration between their two labs brought them together as co-workers. Dr. Winslow was brilliant, and after reading her last eight papers in preparation, Ven was almost star-struck. Her theories on the prenatal development of paranatural humans — Rarities — were unlike anything Ven had read before. Dr. Winslow had come closer than anyone to figuring out how different factors affect the presentation of the Rarity genome and the abilities it manifests. Unfortunately, from the moment Ven saw the doctor’s face, all she could think about was the girl. The girl whose name she’d never been told, but whose face, framed by warm blonde hair, and whose voice — or, more accurately, scream — was forever burned into her brain. The last person Ven’s own paranatural ability had destroyed.

While the Rarity genome was responsible for some miraculous individuals — people who could lift cars without breaking a sweat, bend magnetic fields to their will, breathe underwater or radiate light from their hands — Venena was not one of them. Her ability wasn’t a superpower, but a curse. It had first been discovered when a doctor stitched up her eight-month old hand after her baby brain confused the paring knife her mother held for part of her finger. Somehow, her mother escaped contamination, but when the doctor’s faulty glove ripped and Ven’s blood came in contact with his skin, the presentation of her paranatural genome was revealed.

He died, agonizingly, as poison seeped through his skin and into his bloodstream. Doctors and nurses rushed into the room in a panic, trying everything they could, but couldn’t save him. From the moment his fingers brushed her bloody palm, his fate had been sealed.

After that, there was a kind young babysitter who died after what would have been, for any other child, just a clumsy accident. Next, the man in the park who, distractedly talking to his girlfriend, walked right into six-year-old Venena. She scraped her knee, he tried to help… and his girlfriend screamed in terror as she watched him die. That was the girl who reminded her of Dr. Winslow.

If she’d had even a little say in it, maybe it would’ve been better, but she didn’t. Her power just happened to people. Calling it an ability didn’t seem quite right when it wasn’t something she could activate and shut down at will. For a while, she thought of herself as a weapon, but even that was too generous. Weapons could at least be controlled.

“Dr. Saviani? Are you OK?”

Ven blinked a few times, then looked up. Dr. Winslow watched her with a touch of concern.

“Oh, I’m fine,” she said, trying to sound that way. “Just… a little distracted, is all. Did I miss anything?”

“Not much, Dr. Graaf just went to prep the components for the next trial and asked for your help.”

Ven glanced across the lab to the sterile section, walled off to keep out contaminants. Through the large window, she saw her mentor already in his gown and gloves, carefully measuring a clear, colourless liquid from a burette into an Erlenmeyer flask.

“Right, sorry. Thanks for telling me,” she said, standing and tucking in her chair. She paused. “I’m not a doctor, by the way.” When Dr. Winslow looked confused, she said, “You called me ‘Dr. Saviani’ earlier. I haven’t gotten my PhD yet.”

“Oh, sorry. I forgot. You did a second Master’s instead, right? Is there a reason why? I only ask because from everything I’ve seen here, you seem more than capable of a doctorate.”

“Thank you, that means a lot, actually. I might go back to school someday, but for now, I’m focusing on practical experience. I’m hoping it will help with my—” She cut herself off. Help with my ability. Help me cure it. Help me fix myself. One perk of working in a parabiology lab was that she could work on her condition in her spare time, building theories and testing hypotheses and trying to find an antidote for the poison in her veins. Of course, that was the part she wasn’t supposed to say out loud. Dr. Winslow was aware of her situation as Ven always thought it wise to disclose for safety, but people never knew quite how to respond to a self-pitying biohazard.

“I understand,” Dr. Winslow said awkwardly. For a second, she looked like she might say more: “I’m sorry for what you’ve been through” or “It must’ve been so hard”, but she didn’t. Maybe she just couldn’t find the right words. Ven didn’t hold it against her.

They parted ways and Ven put on her PPE and headed into the sterile section where Dr. Graaf was crouched in front of a bench, eye-level with a graduated cylinder, reading the mark that lined up with the meniscus. He scribbled something in a notepad, then clenched and flexed his hand a few times.

“Arthritis acting up again?” Ven asked.

He shook his head, not in disagreement, but disappointment. “It’s these gloves. Something about the tightness, the way they keep my fingers from bending all the way… It’s fine. I can take them off when we’re done. Can you prep the DNA samples?”

“Of course,” she said, and removed a tray of microcentrifuge tubes from the freezer.

They got to work, mainly in parallel, but combining efforts on certain tasks. Within twenty minutes, they had treated the samples with their query substance and placed them in a temperature-controlled container to react overnight. Dr. Graaf stepped back with a sigh and began to remove his gloves.

“Do you mind?” he asked Ven. “I know we’re not supposed to, but everything’s sealed. I won’t contaminate anything.”

“‘Of course,” she answered. He had decades more experience than her; she was surprised he felt the need to ask.

He tossed them on the counter, flexed his fingers again, and assessed the glassware on the counter before reaching for the graduated cylinder. “Did you hear about the drug bust on the news?” he asked, as they both started to clean up.

“No, what happened?”

He shook his head. “Another foolish attempt at paranatural stimulants. Some gang tried to synthesize the chemical that triggers dopamine when kinetic Rarities use their abilities. Long story short, they messed it up and ended up in the hospital.”

“PNA, right?” Ven clarified. “The chemical? Maybe they used the wrong mirror isomer of the main reagent. They’ll both react to make PNA but the right-handed one produces a neurotoxin as a byproduct.”

“I suppose the drug dealers don’t share our passion for chemistry,” he said dryly. “Here, pop this in the fumehood, will you?”He held out a now-empty volumetric flask. A slight hiss escaped his lips and his hand clenched, shaking faintly. “Sorry, sorry. Here.”

He managed to relax his hand, but as he handed her the flask, it twitched and slipped from his fingers.

“Dammit!” He tried to catch it, fumbling a little but holding on, only for it to collide with the faucet and shatter.

“Ah!” Ven winced and jerked her hand away as a sharp pain shot through it. When she looked down, a clean crimson line sliced through her glove and her skin.

She jumped back, wide eyes on Dr. Graaf, checking for damage. He looked OK. He wasn’t scared. That was good, right? Their hands had been close when the glass broke, maybe there was no direct contact. Maybe he was fine. Her eyes shut for a second, and she breathed a sigh of relief. When she opened them again, he was watching her, his face calm… but disconcertingly so. There was something else in his eyes, just a hint of something not-quite-right. All he said was,

“It’s not your fault.”

This time, she could read between the lines.

“No—” She shook her head, panic starting to seep back in. “No, you’re fine, you didn’t—”

She stopped, falling silent as he held up his hand, where a single drop of blood had landed on the tip of his ring finger.

Her breath started to quicken, and her heart pounded. No. Please, no. This can’t be happening… Maybe he’s wrong, maybe the glass just cut him, too, maybe…

“Venena—” he started to say, but cut himself off, clenching his jaw to stifle a cry as his hand seized up and started to shake in front of him. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then looked at her again and said, “Venena, it’s not your fault. I need you to know that, OK?”

She opened her mouth to say something, but no words came out, and a groan he couldn’t hide this time filled the silence instead. He dropped to his hands and knees, then collapsed to the floor, cries getting louder and more desperate as the pain overtook his sense of control.

Ven stumbled back, wishing she could do something, anything, to help, but knowing it was hopeless. There was no saving him. She couldn’t even ease his pain.

“Go,” he managed to say, locking eyes with her one last time before glancing at the exit. “Go.”

As she backed away, fingers swiping at the door handle, his hand closed around a long, sharp shard of glass, and he drove it into his carotid artery.

~ // ~

Bury it, she told herself as she walked toward the chapel. They didn’t know. That’s all she could think as she paused outside the ornate wooden doors separating her from the bereaved. His family, his friends, his wife. Oh, God, did he have kids? She hated that she didn’t know that, after working with him for so long, but he was quiet at work. They were more the comfortable-in-each-other’s-presence type of friends, rather than the personal-talk kind. Yet here she was, stepping into a room full of the people closest to him. And none of them knew. A lab accident, that’s all they’d been told. Something about a reaction to Rarity DNA. None of them knew she’d killed him.

I shouldn’t be here, she thought as she headed toward an empty pew near the back. A few people glanced her way, and she avoided their eyes, despite knowing it must look rude. She couldn’t talk to them — she just couldn’t. What would she say? What if they asked about the accident? Should she just lie? Or tell them the truth, right here? Across the aisle and four rows up, the other scientists sat together, with Dr. Winslow on the end, speaking to an older woman who stood in the aisle. Family of Dr. Graaf, Ven guessed. Maybe his wife?

She looked away before anyone could make eye contact, stifling the voice in her head repeating I shouldn’t be here as she stared straight ahead. Despite pushing the words away, their truth stuck with her. It wasn’t just this funeral home she didn’t belong in, surrounded by Dr. Graaf’s grieving friends and family whose pain she’d caused, but anywhere close to them. Close to anyone. She glanced at her phone, where behind the lock screen, her resignation was waiting to be sent. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed like the only logical course of action. Plenty of scientists do her job — the lab would be fine without her — and if it weren’t for her presence, her injury, her mistake, none of this would be happening. She was a hazard. A living, breathing, unsafe work environment. She couldn’t endanger anyone anymore.

The service was beautiful, even if she couldn’t watch the eulogy. The moment the woman who had been talking to Dr. Winslow walked up to the pulpit, grey-tinged mascara tears welling up in her eyes, nausea enveloped Ven and she leaned forward and put her head between knees, staring at the floorboards until the speech was over. When she finally looked up, Dr. Okasaki was watching her from the pew of scientists. His face was sympathetic, but the moment she met his eyes, he looked away.

After that, everyone proceeded outside to the misty grave site for the burial, and Ven blended into the crowd as best she could, exchanging condolences with a few dark-clothed strangers but managing to avoid any longer conversation. She found a spot what she thought was a safe distance away, lost in a cloud of guilt-fueled ‘what if’ questions, when the woman from the eulogy found her.

“You worked with him, didn’t you?” The voice came quietly behind her. No, no, no. She turned around.

“Oh, um, yes,” she managed.

“I’m so sorry for what you’ve been through. Seeing him die, I mean. That must be traumatic.”

I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I can’t.

She was spared having to respond because the woman kept talking, her voice strained.

“What they tell me about the accident is so confusing. ‘Paranatural this, reaction that’, I don’t really understand it much…”

No. Please don’t. Please don’t ask about the accident, I—

“I understand that you probably don’t want to talk about it, but if you don’t mind answering just one question—”

Please don’t make me tell you.

“—Did he suffer?”

Ven froze, staring into the woman’s eyes. She couldn’t seem to get the words out, until finally, she was able to blink away whatever had come over her.

“No,” she lied. “Not at all. It was fast, he— he barely felt a thing.”

In her head, he screamed his throat raw.

The woman nodded silently, then took her leave, heading back to the grave where the casket was being lowered. Bury it, Ven begged her own mind, but the visual in front of her made those words sound twisted and wrong. The screaming wouldn’t stop. Against her will, she imagined him still crying out in that box, now clawing at the wood as well as his own skin. The image persisted no matter how many times she reminded herself that he was gone. He was at peace, right? That’s what people said when someone died. But Ven was no stranger to death and she’d never known one that was peaceful.

She had to get out. She couldn’t look at them, any of them, ever again.

While everyone was focused on the lowering casket, she turned and ran.

~ // ~

Ven stared at her phone on the bartop, only looking away to down another shot. Burying it wasn’t working, so she figured she’d try drowning it instead.

The phone was silent, as she knew it would be. It was 6 p.m. when she’d sent in the resignation, 6:30 when she’d gotten to the bar, a seedy but hidden little place called the Hell Haven, and now almost 8. Even if the HR rep checked their email on a Saturday, they wouldn’t’ve seen this. Not that it mattered much — she knew what they’d say. There was no legal requirement for her to provide two weeks’ notice, and since she’d been on leave since the accident, they’d probably already gotten used to working without her. There was no reason not to accept her resignation.

Of course, the question remained, what would she do next? She couldn’t apply to another lab. Quitting hadn’t just been about avoiding her co-workers, but was the only way she knew how to keep them safe. Whatever she did next, she’d have to do it alone.

She glanced at her phone, since she didn’t know where else to look. Certainly not at the bartender, who’d eyed her warily when she’d walked in in an outfit halfway between funeral attire and what she guessed they saw as “privileged STEM girl casual”. After opening her news app, though, she clicked the device off almost immediately after reading the top headline: Three Members of Local Gang Arrested in Connection With Paranatural Drugs, Two Others Hospitalized, Warrant Issued for a Sixth Suspect. One of the last things Dr. Graaf had told her about before he…

“Hey, it’s not my fault I’m not a scientist, OK?” a man shouted to a couple of others across the bar. “Lewis was the one sampling our product. He should’ve known better.”

Ven stiffened. While trying to disguise her glance by sipping her drink, she looked over, scanned his face, then opened her phone again. Sure enough, his photo was in the article above a paragraph about the sixth suspect.

She shook her head. Disorganized, arrogant and can’t do his research to save his life — He’d be caught in a day. It would be for the better, too. He may not be a violent criminal, but he was definitely a danger to society.

As Ven skimmed the rest of the article, half-listening to the chatter in the background, an unexpected idea started to form. She could synthesize PNA easily, safely, and alone, minimizing her human contact to occasional drop-offs to those willing to pay for her services and most importantly, she could probably get access to the resources she'd need to keep working on her antidote at the same time.

Of course, how she'd get the supplies for this new project was still an issue. She hesitated to add burglarizing labs to her unofficial resume, but with multiple graduate degrees, years of lab experience and a statistically significant IQ, she doubted “getting in and out of a building without being seen” would be too hard to figure out.

Then again, she was drunk, tired, grieving, guilty and definitely not thinking clearly. She might wake up tomorrow and realize everything about this plan was absurd. She was a scientist, not a drug dealer… or manufacturer, or cook, or whatever they called themselves. This wasn’t her world. She even felt out of place in this bar.

Still, she started sketching out her next steps on the lab-branded notepad at the bottom of her bag as she waited for her taxi.