Page 72 of Forged in Deception

“Now, I thought I’d try and get the sunset,” Lily was saying. “There’s that nice hilly spot past the dining hall. Thought I could make it up that slope, at least.”

The sun would be setting soon, and if he wasn’t so creeped out by the silence, he had to admit it would be a pretty evening to watch it.

“I’ll walk with you to the parking area,” he offered. “I want to wait for everyone else, anyway. I’m excited for tonight. Hopefully I’ll get the right dose of DX8 this time.”

This was only half a lie. He really would be getting the right dose. It just so happened to be a placebo that he had been supposed to take the first time that would cause some physical symptoms and make his acting job a whole lot easier.

And he was excited. He just happened to be excited that tonight was the final hoop to jump through before he could get Karlin away from here and help her to take Senera down once and for all.

Lily accepted his escort, and the two of them headed toward the central area of the retreat site. She was chatting happily, and he engaged in the conversation as best he could, though his thoughts were elsewhere.

He considered tomorrow’s possibilities, turning the options around over and over in his mind, never quite managing to settle on anything. He was pretty sure about how the investigation related stuff would go. That was routine enough, especially once he dragged the rest of FBS into action.

But Karlin was still a mystery.

He knew she had feelings for him, and he was well beyond denying that he had hopelessly fallen for her. But he also knew she was scared, stubborn, and independent to a fault.

Would she want to stay close to him? Or was she just going to push him away the second that they were no longer forced into close proximity?

“No time for a sunset, apparently,” Lily said with a sigh, pointing toward the access road that led into the retreat site. “Looks like everyone’s back.”

Asher saw two headlights traveling toward them.

Either Senera security was after them after all, or Bajwa and the rest of the trial participants had indeed returned.

He pushed his worries about Karlin aside, steeling himself for whatever came next.

Just one more night. All he had to do was get through one more night.

KARLIN

Karlin glanced over her shoulder as she stood at her desk, gathering up a few of her most well-used notebooks and stuffing them into a tote bag she’d left hanging on the door handle.

She usually loved the silence of the lab, especially the small one here at the retreat site, where Bajwa almost never ventured. It was her sanctuary.

But today, the air in the place felt different. She didn’t feel at peace. Instead, a steady sense of anxiety seemed to grip her.

She looked around the space again, trying to think of anything else that she felt she absolutely had to take with her. Up on the wall above her desk was a large collection of carefully curated art, motivational quotes, and clippings from research articles she’d participated in. She saw a few things she wouldn’t have minded pulling down and shoving in her bag, but she didn’t reach up to grab them.

The wall represented years of memories, and despite the terrible things she’d been part of, she couldn’t deny that the majority of those memories were still good ones. She still didn’t know exactly how she felt about the moral implications of psychedelic drugs, but the very thought of her research area now made her feel off-balance.

Would tomorrow bring an entirely new life? Would she realize that she had spent so many years on something that was not only corrupted, but dangerous to its core?

She didn’t know if she could bear it. And worse, she didn’t know if Axel could bear it either.

Could God?

Axel would say He could. He’d say she’d be forgiven, no matter what she’d done, but it was hard for her to believe it now as she stood looking at the dozens of academic papers, a record of the lives her work had influenced.

She was no Marie Curie–the world would never know her name–but she knew that didn’t really matter. In her own way, she’d been a big part of the psychedelic revolution in mental health research, and years from now, her name was still going to come up on a PubMed search.

The thought didn’t make her proud. More than anything, she felt ashamed.

She turned away from the desk, giving the rest of the room a final once-over.

She knew she was probably leaving evidence behind tying her personally to some of Senera’s more mundane unethical activities, but what did it matter at this point?

All she really cared about now was taking care of John, and making things right. For Amira, for Destiny, and for everyone else that DX8 had hurt.

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