Page 56 of Lady Killer

I was determined to talk to her about it one-on-one. I just needed to set up some reason to meet with her without Autumn around.

It hadn’t been hard to get her number from Autumn.

Simone was a fine arts major with a focus on pottery, so I made up a lie about wanting to talk to her about a paper I was writing on Japanese lacquerware for my class.

“She’s actually more focused on West African pottery. She’s working on this proposal for an independent study project—‍”

“Maybe she’ll know someone in her program, or at least where to start researching?”

“Oh sure, here, let me put it in your phone.”

I handed it over to Autumn and let her add Simone to my contacts. The paper in question had been finished two weeks ago, but she didn’t need to know that.

“What are you up to tonight?” she said, handing my phone back to me.

“Ugh, my required science class.”

SCI135 was one of the softball classes for nonscience majors to fulfill their degree requirements. It was meant to provide all of us lesser students with the highlights of most of the major science programs here at Hollow Oak.

I’d enrolled in the course looking to get my science credit out of the way, thinking I was going to have a rigorous term between ECON202 and STAT202.

Instead, my stats class had turned out to be a fluff course, and SCI135 was even fluffier.

I was further ahead in my classes this semester than I had ever been before, and I was seriously considering seeing if I could get my hands on the course material for the next year’s classes.

“How is that going? I heard it’s, like, the easiest class ever.”

I shouldn’t complain. I had a to-do list a mile long.

But that was part of what drove me nuts about it. I had stuff to do, but instead, I spent every Tuesday night from five to seven in a stuffy lecture hall while a rotating cast offaculty members from the different science departments came to speak about their area of focus.

Unfortunately, attendance was 20 percent of my course mark.

The class was so large I literally had to tap in on a special app that logged my physical presence. And then there were the in-class quizzes that could only be completed on a laptop.

I hated it.

“It’s okay,” I mumbled, trying to juggle my hot coffee cup between my hands.

Fingerless knit gloves seemed cute until I had to hold a burning-hot cup of coffee between the exposed pads of my fingers.

“Last week, we had someone from the geology department come and explain the different types of rocks to us like when we were elementary students. So, that was definitely worth spending two hours on.”

“Yikes, what department is coming by this week?”

“Pharmacology,” I said while trying to blow air down the tiny hole in the lid of the coffee cup, like that was somehow going to cool it down.

“Like, drugs and stuff?”

“More or less.”

I’d briefly considered pharmacology for a major. It was a good fit given my preferred kill method.

Ultimately, I decided it was too on the nose and risky, in the unlikely case that someone ever caught on to me.

Dosis sola facit venenum…

Only the dose makes the poison. . .

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