‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘I’ll make us both one.’
‘I’m busy. I don’t have time to stop.’
‘But I’m going to be using a knife,’ he said. ‘And what if I break something, like that glass you just left there?’
‘I could move it,’ she said, hands on hips.
‘Or you could sit down,’ he said, ‘and let me make you a sandwich. Don’t you like me any more?’
He sensed that she wanted to smack him again, but instead she climbed up onto a leather-and-steel bar stool.
‘I hate these chairs,’ she said.
‘I hear you,’ he responded.
He kept the grin from his face, watching her restraining herself from taking over while he made the sandwiches. Then he headed up to his room.
After walking through the clean lines and glittering glamour of the rest of the home, he smiled when he reached his doorway. It could not have been any more at odds with the rest of the house. A wide wooden arch inlaid with intricate carvings of leaves, berries and curlicues surrounded the heavy wooden door. He turned the handle and entered the tallest turret of the mansion – his bedroom and study.
He locked the door behind him.
Books and science journals lined the curved walls, squatted in corners in perilous towers and covered most surfaces of his sprawling desk. Six PCs took up the rest of the space, their cords and wires snaking across the mosaic-tiled floor. An arched window behind the desk overlooked the slate tiles of the rooftop and down to Lake Geneva.
He took his lunch to the back of the room and climbed the spiral staircase. He shoved his laptop aside and dropped down onto his bed. As he munched his sandwich, he stared absently at the view through another arched window, and thought about the note.
Even though he had every word – and even the shape of every letter – memorised, he reached behind him and felt around with his fingers until he found it, wedged into one of the curved nooks in the carved bedhead. He bent his legs and smoothed the paper out on his knee.
He wondered why the note was written in English and not German or Italian. Jake was fluent in six languages, including all of these, but English was not commonly used by the Swiss. He read the brief message again.
You are being watched. An enemy has learned of your emotion-synthesis model and seeks to use it for weaponry. I have further information about this and about the distillation of emotions 3, 7 and 9. Meet me on Saturday night, Level 4, in the campus library, 8.30 p.m. If anyone is with you, you’ll never hear from me again.
He slapped the note down on the bed. Since it had been delivered two days ago in an envelope with his academic transcript, he’d been trying to figure out who had sent it. One of the professors? How did the writer even know about his labelling system for the emotions? He’d never published it. Emotions three, seven and nine: fear, envy and shame. And who else out there could have realised the application of his research for weaponry?
He’d already decided that he would be at the library tonight. He just hadn’t completely figured out how he was going to get off the property without George finding out. But with his uncle away on a lecture tour, it was perfect timing…
A muffled crash sounded from downstairs in his study.
Jake sprang from the bed, praying that he hadn’t lost the order of the books stacked next to the fireplace. All of them were opened to the pages he was up to.
He bolted down the stairs, two at a time, and scanned the room, confused. Everything looked just as it had a few moments ago.
And then the noise sounded again. It was coming from -
Jake had never really believed that a person could actually faint from shock. But when the door to the storage cupboard under his desk swung open and a girl crawled out, the blood left his head in a rush and he saw stars.
When his vision cleared, two boys stood next to her, the shorter of the two leaning heavily on the other.
He would have cried out, but he’d forgotten how to do that.
‘Jake Grey?’ said the taller boy, the front of his shirt covered in blood.
Jake took a seat, right there on the tiles.
Acknowledgments
Sending love, luck and many thanks to Jeanmarie Morosin for opening the portal.
Thank you so much, Jane Godwin and Katrina Lehman. How it is possible to have two such adorable bosses, I’ll never know. May we have every editing meeting atop a skyscraper at dusk.
Many thanks to Marina Messiha for the amazing cover art and design of this book. And thanks to everyone at Penguin for your help and support. I’ve collected psychological profiles for each of you, and find you all, if not sane, at least thoroughly delightful.
A massive thank you to my family and friends, who love me in spite of my invisibility. Whether we’re together or not, you’re always in my heart. A special thank you to the real Zac, Kirra, Luke, Jake and Samantha. I’ve spent almost every waking moment thinking of you while writing about your adventures. I love you and all my other nieces and nephews – you’re all in a book if you look hard enough. Don’t fight!
Thank you my darling mum for everything, ever, including finally reading one of my novels! I know, I know… the others are too scary. My dad would have loved them. I miss him too.
And my Joshua. Thank you can never be enough. Our lives and minds run through every page of this book.
Leah Giarratano
***
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Disharmony Page 29
