Page 25 of Forged in Deception

“Amen to that,” Asher added, raising his empty tea mug into the air.

He couldn’t help but to feel a little pity for Cora. She was clearly the youngest in the group by quite a few years, and he knew that thanks to TikTok and all the rest, the broader culture she had grown up in was a lot different than his own.

He stole a glance in Karlin’s direction, noticing the fake smile she’d slapped on as Bajwa said something to her and Ned. He doubted Karlin could tell him very much about the backgrounds of the other guests unless he had a good reason to ask, but he was definitely curious about how much she knew.

“So, how about you, Axel?” Cora asked, raising her own tea mug and clinking it against his own. “I gotta admit, you look kind of like a guy who has tried it all.”

Touché.

Judging a book by its cover worked, but not always.

“Nah, not me,” he said, offering her a breezy smile. “I like a cold Bud after band practice once in a while, but I’m not into anything else.”

Paul said nothing, but gave him an approving nod from his place across the table. Well, if name dropping cheap beer was allthat was required to get into the man’s good graces, he’d happily take it.

The others began to chat more about their feelings on alcohol or the lack thereof, and Asher once again found both his eyes and his thoughts drifting in Karlin’s direction.

He wondered what the day ahead would hold when breakfast was finished, but already he knew he was looking forward to hiking to that crummy cabin again tonight so he could let his guard down a little.

Being undercover, even using mostly his real personality, was exhausting.

And that was the only reason he was going to let himself get excited about seeing Karlin alone.

He’d been so focused on the Lord, his work, and his family for the last couple of years. It had been good for him, and he had to stay the course.

Even if everything about the beautiful researcher had a way of drawing him in.

KARLIN

Karlin stole a glance at her watch as the hour hand ticked slowly toward eight o’clock. She’d finished her breakfast twenty minutes ago, but unfortunately she and Ned had been stuck listening to Bajwa for what felt like forever. Ned barely said anything, either, so she had mostly been responsible for keeping up some semblance of a back and forth conversation.

Maybe Ned could be friends with Paul, who didn’t seem to be opening up very much to Axel, either.

Not that she was keeping tabs on their end of the table or anything.

She knew that the trial needed Paul for demographic reasons, but she was beginning to wonder how much useful data she’d be able to get. Despite her asking several times for more medical history on their patients, Bajwa hadn’t told her very much about any of them, only that their doctors had signed off on their being here.

It was not how a medical trial was supposed to go, but that was Senera. Bajwa would talk her up to the guests as a colleague, but when it came down to actually doing their jobs, he had no problem treating her like a lowly intern rather than a competent scientist in her own right.

On the other hand, the last time she’d had a large amount of involvement in patient selection, one of them had ended up dead.

She glanced over at the others again, noticing that the others save Paul were all chatting happily together.

They all looked happy enough.

No, the word she was looking for was innocent.

They all looked innocent, and she was going to be giving them a psychedelic drug that had hurt people in the past and could hurt them, too.

But Axel was right. She had to hope for the best and let the rest of the trial take place. They weren’t going to let Senera hurt anyone else in the future. This was the last group of people who would face this risk.

She felt her gut twist as she considered the future that awaited her personally.

If everything went like she and Axel hoped it would, these people would move on with their lives, probably with a large financial settlement courtesy of Senera.

But what would happen to her? Where would she work?

She wasn’t concerned about getting a settlement. She would be happy just to have a medical research job that paid enough to support her and to help John.

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