My burned at sticker to the tal wall.
What now?
What do I do now?
Police will be here any mont. dia too.
I’ll be a bigger scandal than the Diddy baby oil scandal.
The bottles of oil would be more understandable too. Taxidermy stomachs of thousands of oga exact in the mont of blooming?
Not so easy to explain.
Which only leaves one escape plan—
Destroy and retreat. At least for now.
Ok.
So-
I am in a room full of my fingerprints and taxidermy.
The police must be by the middle of the hallway now, so that gives about 2 minutes until they reach this room.
My wife and I had a bad fight.
And my skin is glued to the wall.
But, on the positive sight -
I still have the syringe.
And I am not bleeding internally.
Fine. Easy.
I pull.
The scab tears first, then the soft tissue under it.
Feels like ripping duct tape off raw flesh. It cos slow, sticky, wet. Blood runs down my spine in thin lines.
The sll is cooked at and antiseptic.
Pain spikes, then flattens.
I lean forward and check with my fingers—skin is gone, maybe the size of a hand.
Not deep enough to open muscle.
No organs exposed.
I can live with that.
Maybe I’ll even gaslight Luther into loving more because of it.
After all, it was his fault, wasn’t it?
I slam my fist on the red button.
The door locks with a hard click.
Vents hiss. Fire jets open in a neat line and bloom across the walls.
Heat rolls in waves.
Glass jars crack, then explode.
Liquids boil, flesh splits, fras curl black. The air turns sharp, tallic.
Years of research, of carefully collecting the most exquisite exemplary just to burn down like this.
My throat feels like sandpaper.
Sweat slides down my chest.
My hair sticks to my face.
My lungs pull smoke.
My back screams every ti I move.
One syringe in my pocket. One way out.
Simple.
The door blows open.
Smoke rushes out like pressurized steam. Fire alarms scream behind , but the system is almost done—everything inside is black, broken, and gone.
And then they’re here.
Five uniforms.
Faces wet with sweat. Mouths open like they’ve got sothing to say, but they don’t.
They just grab .
The heat on my back tears fresh pain through the burn.
My legs barely hold, so I let them carry. One under each arm, one at my legs. My hair sticks to my cheek.
My lungs taste like burnt oil.
They run through the hallway.
Past broken tiles.
Past bulletproof glass with spiderweb cracks.
Soone shouts about oxygen. Soone else says "third-degree."
I don’t care.
Outside, air cuts cold into my throat.
Feels like ice after heat.
They push into an ambulance. The stretcher locks. Straps tighten across my chest.
Good.
The dic leans in, checking vitals.
Pulse ox on my finger.
Blood pressure cuff on my arm.
His gloves squeak on the plastic.
I watch his tray.
One syringe. Two vials.
He doesn’t know what I already have in my pocket.
The door slams shut.
Engine roars.
We move.
I count heads. Two dics in the back, one driver. All focused on saving .
Sheep.
I slide my hand under my side, fingers finding the syringe. Warm from my body heat. Thin gauge.
Prepped with exactly what I need.
The first dic leans close, checking my pupils. He says sothing about inhalation burns. His face is six inches away.
Easy.
I jab the needle into his neck.
Quick, hard, straight through skin into muscle.
Push an inch of the dose.
He jerks. Eyes go wide. Tries to talk, but it’s over in seconds.
His body slumps forward, pulse flat.
The second dic freezes.
Hands in the air like I asked him to.
I didn’t.
Doesn’t matter.
I hit him in the arm.
Full dose this ti.
Straight into the deltoid.
He gets five seconds before his airway locks.
The driver is next.
I crawl forward as the ambulance sways.
He sees in the mirror, starts to yell.
I jam the needle into the side of his neck from behind the seat. Push the rest of it in. His voice dies halfway through a curse.
The wheel jerks, but I grab it.
We bounce hard over the curb before I level us out.
Breathing steady.
Heart rate up, but manageable.
My back screams when I move. The burn tears again, wet under my shirt. I press the wound with my hand. Cos away slick.
Red. Not fatal.
I push the bodies out of the way, slide into the driver’s seat.
Blood sars across the wheel.
Doesn’t matter.
I kill the siren. Pull a hard left onto an empty street.
Destination is clear.
Warehouse first.
Then the car.
Then the institute.
The warehouse slls like rust and mold.
Nobody’s been here in months. I ditch the ambulance inside and lock the gate behind . The uniforms won’t find it for hours.
One car waits under a tarp—a black sedan I left here for ergencies like this. Keys in the glove box. Fuel tank full.
I strip off the burned shirt and grab a clean one from the backseat.
The wound sticks and tears as the fabric goes on.
Blood soaks through fast, but it’ll hold for now.
I drive. Forty minutes of empty roads.
My eyes burn from smoke, but the route is muscle mory.
The institute rises out of nowhere.
Concrete walls, no signs. Just like it should be. Security caras catch rolling up, but they won’t stop .
I built this place.
Gate opens on code entry. I park underground. The air here is cold, dry, filtered.
No smoke. No rot. Feels clean.
I walk past steel doors, each one marked with a number. Lights hum overhead. My boots echo.
Cells line the corridor—eight of them on this floor alone. Inside, the ogas are quiet.
So sleep. So watch . All restrained.
All breathing the drugs I designed for them.
I stop at the first door.
Check the monitor.
Heart rate: stable.
Cortisol levels: low.
No signs of heat.
Perfect.
Everything I burned today, everything I lost—it doesn’t matter.
This is what matters. The work. The research. The perfect world I’ll design.
I step into the lab.
Stainless steel tables. Rows of syringes, vials, instrunts in perfect order.
Freezers hum along the wall.
I wash my hands, strip the blood from under my nails, tape gauze over the burn on my back.
Not clean, not sterile, but good enough until I can treat it right.
The institute feels silent, but it isn’t.
Vent systems hum. Monitors beep. Cells breathe behind steel.
I look in the mirror above the sink.
Long dark hair, wet with sweat and smoke. Honey eyes, rimd red. An an expression I don’t recognize.
I smile. Small, sharp. Everything’s still under control.
It’s fine.
I’ll get my wife back and then it will proceed just like I planned. Luther was always a wild card. So it will work out.
F-ck.
I should have just waited out.
The way Luther’s eyes looked at .
Not with fear, not with anger, but with sothing softer, sothing raw and open.
Like he wasn’t just the guarded man I knew but soone willing to let in.
And —too caught up in my own need and confusion to realize just how much I wanted that.
I can still feel Luther’s weight pressing against , his breath hot on my skin, the sharp pulse of his heartbeat vibrating through my chest like a drum I can’t quiet.
That mont—when his fingers traced my arm, slow and certain—replays in my mind with a vividness I can’t shake.
The way his hand moved, not asking but claiming, the heat of his skin burning through my shirt, the raw, insistent pressure of his thumb against my shoulder.
It was a touch that demanded attention, that took over everything else.
I try to focus on the sterile instrunts in front of , but my fingers twitch, aching to find that skin again.
I rember the kiss.
The sudden force of it, rough and urgent.
His mouth on mine, tasting and claiming, too much and just enough all at once.
I can still feel the burn of his lips, swollen and bruised, the sharp press of his tongue demanding space, pulling under.
My body tightens, muscles coiling, and I want to give in, to surrender to that fierce heat. My hands want to roam over him again, to feel his skin, warm and trembling beneath my touch.
The weight of his body pressed on , cold tal beneath my back, his hands gripping my arms like he was holding himself back—or maybe holding in place.
The raw need in his eyes, wild and hungry, sets my blood racing.
The scent of him—sweet, woody, delightfully and painfully sour and addictive—wraps around and I can’t breathe without it filling my lungs.
The mory of his lips on my collarbone, his breath hot against my skin, makes my fingers clench.
The way I pressed my hand to his chest, feeling the solid muscle beneath, the way his skin was warm and just slightly damp—like he was holding back, but barely.
The taste of him still lingers on my tongue, sharp and sweet, and it drags a tremor through my body.
The reminder of his flower, the petals curling and shifting beneath his skin, haunts .
I want to trace that mark again, to feel the strange heat there, to understand what it ans.
The tension in his body when I reached for the syringe is still fresh.
I can feel the rut coming on, slow but relentless.
The familiar burning heat in my core intensifies, knotting deep inside . I’m losing control without even realizing it.
My body aches for him, craves him in a way I can’t deny, even if my mind still tries.
I miss my wife.
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