Page 47 of A Lab Rat's Guide to Fated Love
“Rose quartz. Etched them myself.” Anita beamed proudly before taking the stone from him and examining the drawing. “Ah, the Algiz. It symbolizes protection.” She let out a low whistle. “Whoa, I got chills. I just channeled… quote, unquote,you’re protected.”
“Protected? Seriously?” Vir grimaced.
He’d just begun to come to terms with his fast-approaching end and had spent the past few days trying to convince his family to let him die in peace. And to be told he wasprotected…
The bag of magic-rocks could try telling his body that. And maybe it’d listen and miraculously stop attacking his heart.
“Hey, don’t shoot the messenger.” Anita handed him the stone with a tiny, apologetic smile. “Keep it. I’ll make more.”
The next morning, Vir walked into her studio. “Do you have time for one more appointment?”
“The Algiz?” She motioned for him to sit, while her face glowed with a knowing smile.
Once Anita was done tattooing the rune, Vir handed the stone back to her. “I’ll keep this one, thanks,” he said, pointing to the ink on his chest.
The dreams became scarce, and the woman with Nori’s face didn’t bring him the pebble again, even if she did sporadically show up after that.
Vir sighed as he blinked out of his reverie, just in time to catch Nori’s muffled voice coming from the living room.
At first, he couldn’t make out her words. But then she swore loudly, and the abrupt, anxious shift in her mood jolted him to his feet. He was across the room and out through the bedroom door in three long strides.
Twelve
The Beat-Up Lab Rat’s Agility
January 2019:
Shoja, Himachal Pradesh
Nori
Nori tried hard not to gagas she watched the bloodstained fabric tumble around inside the washing machine while recalling Vir’s poor, bashed nose from a moment ago. She was supposed to be making himbetter, not bludgeoning him to death.
A muffled buzzing drew her attention towards the couch. It was nearly three in the morning. There couldn’t possibly be a good reason foranyoneto call her at this hour.
She located her phone tucked under a cushion to find Fehim’s name flashing on the screen.
“Hey!” she answered. “Is everything okay?”
“You need to get out of there,” Fehim said, his tone urgent. “They’ll be at your place by noon, latest. Hurry.”
“Who? What’s going on?”
“People from the research center,” he replied. “Amit and Hina’s cronies, really. I don’t know what changed, suddenly. But they made an appeal to the HOD and called for an urgent late-night meeting to complain about you mishandling the experiment. I just found out from a senior. They claim to have intel that Vir is in bad shape, the experiment has already failed, and you’ve been hiding him so you could keep the grant money.”
Nori swore loudly.
She hadn’t eventouchedthe grant money since leaving the research center. Not that she could, even if she wanted to, without Tanya co-signing on every little expense.
Before she could respond, an alarmed Vir burst through the bedroom door. He stood there, scanning the surroundings for threat, only visibly relaxing once he noticed the phone in her hand.
“It’s Fehim,” she explained, before switching to speaker mode. She directed her next words towards Fehim. “That’s ridiculous. Do they seriously think these allegations would work? Once they’re here, they’ll clearly see Vir doing well. Besides, I can share all the data with Tanya without them having to send people over. What are they even thinking?”
“Tanya doesn’t believe them,” Fehim said. “At least she doesn’t want to. But she has to take action in response to a complaint of this nature even if to formally dismiss it. Some people suggested requesting a status report first, but Amit said they can’t tell if any data you send over is real or made up just from a report. They can only know for sure by meeting Vir in person.
“In that case, of course, the complaint would be dropped, but they’d take him back to eliminate any scope for future allegations. And you know the risk ifthathappens. You have to get out of there for now. It doesn’t matter where you go, just don’t tell anyone where you are, till you’re ready to come back with results.”
“Well, fuck.” Both Nori and Vir exhaled in unison.
