“I’m normal… sort of,” he said, and he reached out a hand to touch her cheek, then pulled her even closer and kissed her.
Ari felt the desire behind the kiss and returned it. With her eyes closed, she let her hands spring up to pull his beanie away, freeing his dark hair which she twined her fingers through. Their tongues danced in each other’s mouths and Ari found him leaning over her, pushing his weight down on hers as she fell back against the damp grass, his hand jutting out just in time to catch her head. A moment later and his hands were running down her chest, searching for the buttons of her shirt as he undid them. At the same time there were soft kisses trailing down her neck, sending shivers down her body. But the lips behind the kisses were not cold, they were warm, and Ari startled by their touch.
Slowly Ari opened her eyes, expecting to see green eyes, but no; the eyes which looked down lustfully at her were light blue. It was Chris.
“Stop. We shouldn’t have,” said Ari, and she watched as darkness seemed to cover Chris’s face, hiding his eyes; when she looked past him to see what had cast the shadow, her heart skipped a beat. “Ragon,” she breathed; he was standing behind Chris, his mouth open in surprise, his eyes locked on Ari’s in a look of absolute revulsion and grief.
What was she doing? Why was she kissing Chris? She was drunk, had been angry with Ragon, but that didn’t mean… didn’t excuse this behaviour. How could she have been so stupid? How could she risk everything that she and Ragon had for a drunken kiss?
Ragon, perhaps having the same thoughts, closed his eyes heavily, as if the mere sight of Ari was heartbreaking, then blurred away.
“Ragon wait,” she yelled, scrambling to her feet and racing after him.
She felt Chris reach out to grab her hand.
“Ari wait, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to,” said Chris, and he pulled her so that she was back on the ground with him. “Please, I just thought… I mean I thought you just said-”
“-no Chris,” she said quickly, “you wait,” and she flung her hands into the air and stopped time, quickly racing in the direction that Ragon had disappeared.
Ari ran as fast as her legs would carry her to Cruor halls. She had no idea where Ragon was, and hoped that he might have retreated back to his dorm room.
She hammered on Ragon’s door for a full minute before someone down the corridor poked their head out of their room and said, “Clearly he’s not here.”
Hanging her head, Ari moved back outside and ran to the campus club, thinking he might have gone back there. It was late, and when she got to the club, Ari saw that most of the party goers had left. She raced around the club, hoping to see Ragon or any of the coven members, but only strangers faces stared back at her. Sighing loudly, Ari retrieved her phone and tried calling Ragon. On the second ring he hung up.
“What have I done?” she said macabrely to herself, bringing the phone in her hand up so that it rested against her head.
Walking back dumbly to Omega halls, Ari tried writing a text message to Ragon. It wasn’t easy. She was still drunk and the words on her phone kept autocorrecting to say something entirely different. And then there was also the unescapable problem that she had no idea what to say to him. What could she say; ‘sorry Ragon, I was drunk so I kissed Chris’. Just thinking that made her feel sick with guilt. This was all Bridget’s fault. If Ari hadn’t of found out about Bridget’s and Ragon’s past, then she would never have gotten this drunk, and she would never have been angry with Ragon in the first place. Somehow, blaming Bridget was a lot easier than taking responsibility for her own actions.
When Ari was back at Omega halls, she walked slowly and glumly up the staircase, her feet dragging. As she neared her room, she saw a figure sitting on the floor outside her door. She raced towards them eagerly, her heart hammering in her chest, until she realised that it was Chris.
“Just listen to me,” he said, standing and moving towards her, though Ari had already started to back away.
“Chris,” said Ari, her voice full of anger as she spun to face him, “what we did… it was a mistake.”
“Mistake?”
“Yes,” Ari reiterated, “a drunken, stupid, mistake.”
“That was not a mistake,” said Chris, and he reached out a hand towards her, trying to touch her face, but she inched away.
“Chris! I have a boyfriend.”
“But,” said Chris, replacing his hand by his side and looking at her intently, “but you said-”
“-I know what I said. I didn’t mean it. I love Ragon.”
Chris looked down at his feet. He made to move back towards his dorm room but paused as he passed her.
“I know you felt something too,” he said, searching for truth in Ari’s eyes. “I felt the way you kissed me. You don’t kiss someone like that just because you’re drunk and angry.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, and she moved past Chris and into her room, closing the door behind her, not looking back.
Chapter 8- Driving
It was 5.30am when an alarm rung shrilly the next morning, waking Ari instantly. She brought her hand down fast and slammed the alarm clock hard, wondering briefly why she had set it so early, then remembering that she had a driving lesson soon. As she sat up in bed, Ari felt her head spin and she clasped a hand to her forehead, feeling a wave of guilt wash over her. She was hungover… very hungover. But that wasn’t what she felt guilty about. Quickly Ari raced to her phone and looked down. Two missed called from Chris… nothing from Ragon.
Ari felt her heart leap painfully in her chest. Still holding her phone, she scrolled through her messages, and read the text she had sent to Ragon last night:
‘You didn’t see what you thought you saw… I mean, you did. But it means nothing. It was a stupid mystique. I love you. I love any you. Please call me. I can’t bear the thought of what you must drink of me.’
Ari frowned. She must have been very drunk. Not only because of all the spelling mistakes in her text, but also because of how much her head throbbed now. She reached for a bottle of water and some nurophen, taking two of the small white tablets before washing them down. What had she done?
It was a cloudy morning, typical of the Isle of Man. As it was only just day break, fog still curled low to the ground, licking up buildings as it disappeared into the air. Walking down to the Pasteur Institute parking lot, Ari suddenly heard thrill laughter behind her and spun around to see Gwen and a man walking in the opposite direction. Ari craned her neck after them, certain that there was something familiar about the man. Before she could focus on his face however, a loud honking distracted her and she spun around to see a small white car with the sign, ‘Driving’s a snap with Mrs Grap.’ Raising her eyebrows, Ari forced a smile at the plump woman in the driver’s seat, watching as she got out of her car and held the door open for Ari.
Ari hadn’t wanted to go to her driving lesson, but as it had been Ragon who had booked it and not her, and Ragon was not speaking with her, she couldn’t cancel. Ari gulped loudly as she moved to the driver’s seat, adjusting the seatbelt and then trialling all the pedals.
“Well my dear, I hope your mind is clear and you’re ready to focus on the road,” said Mrs Grap.
Ari sighed, turned the car ignition on and pushed the car into first gear, gently mixing the accelerator with the clutch. The car stalled.
“Sorry,” Ari muttered, restarting the car.
For the first ten minutes she circled the campus, occasionally demonstrating her ability to perform reverse parallel parking or else hill starts, though neither very well. When they neared the edge of the campus, Ari noticed a large building that she hadn’t seen before. Craning her neck to read the words, Ari swerved a little and almost hit a cyclist.
“Eyes on the road,” said Mrs Grap, her voice strict.
Ari was certain that she had read that the building was the ‘Forensic Agency and Research Morgue.’ So that was the farm, she thought. Trying to push this out of her mind, she nodded a
t Mrs Grap and refocused her attentions on her driving lesson.
Despite trying to remain attentive, Ari found her mind wandering during her lesson, occasionally drifting back to the night before or else thinking about the building she had seen, where Bridget and Ragon had gotten blood samples from unwitting humans for their thesis. A few times she had slammed on the brake in frustration and then speed up out of anger, but all in all the lesson had gone better than she would have thought, and she had booked in for her driving exam in a few weeks’ time.
When Mrs Grap dropped her off an hour later, Ari raced back to her room and got ready for the first day of her second clinical rotation at the Pasteur Animal Research Laboratory. With a pang of dread, Ari remembered that Chris would be partnering her for this rotation too. Chris, who she had stupidly kissed last night, was the very last person she wanted to see right now.
At 8.45 Chris knocked on her door and Ari moved nervously to open it.
“Hey,” he said, smiling sheepishly at her.
Chris looked distinctively handsome in his blue overalls and clean washed hair. Ari tried not to remember the smell of his deodorant from the previous night, as he leaned against the door. Instead she busied herself with filling her bag with the things she might need for the day.
“Hey,” she replied, moving into the corridor and keeping as much distance between them as they walked out of Omega halls.
For the first few minutes the pair walked together in awkward silence, passing Delta halls on their way to the edge of the campus. Ari could feel Chris watching her and she tried to keep her eyes down on the ground.
“You know,” he said finally, “we’re going to have to talk to each other at some point. I mean… we have to spend the rest of the week doing post mortems on animals. And it’s a good fifteen minute walk there. Here, I’ll start. Could they put this God forsaken place any further away? I’m going to be an old man before we even get through the door.”
“They’re called necropsies,” Ari said blandly.
Her irritation at their kiss last night was fuelled even more by Chris’s obvious disinterest at pathology. Unlike Chris, Ari was excited at the prospect of spending the entire week taking samples of tissue and looking at them under the microscope. Ever since she had started the vet course, there had been something about pathology and histology that she found fascinating. This rotation was widely regarded as one of the worse ones during 4th year, second only to the three days they had to spend at a meat works, but Ari had been secretly looking forward to it. Now however, she just felt remorseful and ashamed, and no amount of enjoyment she got in this clinical rotation would wash away the guilt she felt.
“That’s right,” said Chris, smiling as she locked eyes with him, “I forgot that you liked pathology. See, I bet Ragon doesn’t know that about you. I bet that-”
“-Ragon has a medical degree from Princeton.”
“Mr perfect,” he said, whistling low under his breath. “No wonder you kissed me last night.”
“I didn’t kiss you. It was-”
“-I know, I know… a mistake,” said Chris, but there was a fondness in his eyes and a smile on his face that Ari found irritating.
“Chris, please! I told you. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to happen. Can we just forget… can we just go back to the way things were between us?”
“But that’s just it Ari,” said Chris, “I don’t think it was an accident. And what you said was all true, even if you do want to blame it on the Jack Daniels. I think last night you actually thought about it properly. I mean, what exactly is the long term plan for you and Ragon? He’s a vampire. He’s going to live forever.”
“It’s none of your business. Look, can we please just focus on our rotation?”
Chris nodded glumly and directed them over to a large industrial building. Ari had only been to this side of the campus once, when Thomas and Ragon had taken her to see Sandra during her blood candy withdrawals. As they neared the building signed ‘Veterinary Pathology Laboratory’, Ari saw again the small narrow path she had taken all those months ago to see Sandra. Now there was another building parallel to the Veterinary Pathology Lab, a small sign erected in front of it which read, ‘Forensic Agency and Research Morgue’. Ari stared at the new building, surprised by how quickly it must have been built. In front of the sign which indicated the FARM, there was a large banner, newly printed, that read ‘Free Flu Vaccines available Monday’s and Thursdays.’
“When did that get built?” asked Ari, pointing to the building.
Chris craned his neck to see what she was indicating.
“No idea. Never seen it before, though I don’t know how I could miss it. What is it called, Forensic Agency and Research Morgue? Hang on a minute, isn’t that what Sandra was talking about the other night? Didn’t Gwen organise the construction of it.”
“Yea,” said Ari, “and Ragon and Bridget-” but she stopped talking quickly, too hurt to mention that was where Ragon and Bridget had also gotten human blood samples from.
“With a name like the Forensic Agency and Research Facility, doesn’t sound ominous or secretive at all. Leave it to the vamps to call it something like that. Creeps.”
Ari ignored the snipe and the pair entered the building parallel to the FARM.
After fifteen minutes of waiting for their supervisor, Dr Helen, to arrive, the pair had taken the initiative to wait for her in the lab that they would be using for the duration of their rotation.
“God it’s freezing in here,” said Chris, breathing out heavily and looking glumly at the mist that was forming in front of his face. “I bet this is what it feels like when you hug Ragon-”
“-yes, we keep the room as fourteen degree Celsius so as not to compromise the tissues samples,” said a very short woman with large spectacles, startling the pair as she walked over to them.
Ari and Chris spun around to see Dr Helen. She was wearing a pair of enormous glasses, a tweed suit, and clutched tightly to an ugly yellow umbrella. Dr Helen was extremely short, with a long thin nose and almost pointy ears, giving her the appearance of an elf. She had taken Chris and Ari for most of their clinical pathology lectures the previous semester. During that time, many of the class had nick named her turtle teacher; she rarely left the campus and would always reply to emails within minutes, not to mention that she hid predominantly in her lab, except to occasionally sneak a cigarette outside. In fact she was the perfect teacher; no social life, no other commitments, just the desire to pass her knowledge down to the future generations of vets.
“Oh really, it’s only fourteen degrees?” Chris asked sarcastically. “It feels so much warmer than that.”
Dr Helen smiled absently at Chris and motioned for the pair to follow her.
She had moved towards what appeared to be a large stainless steel refrigerator, except it was roughly the size of a large bedroom, maybe bigger. Ari watched curiously as she clicked the lock then slide the heavy door open and walked inside. Ari knew from the chilly fog that curled out of the room, that as cold as it was where they had been standing, it was nothing to how cold it was in there.
“This just gets better and better,” Chris muttered under his breath.
The pathology freezer was enormous, stretching past as far as the eye could see, with many black bags placed on various shelves, each held closed with black zip lock ties. At the front, hanging disturbingly from the ceiling, were the bodies of animals too large to be placed in bags. A horse and a few sheep swayed ominously, all lined up next to each other, their weight supported by grotesque hooks, which cut into the skin at the back of their neck. With a pang of horror, Ari realised that she was basically standing in the equivalent of an animal morgue.
“So, you just come in here and grab one of the bags,” said Dr Helen, reaching up and grasping the nearest bag, before backing out of the freezer and back into the lab.
Ari watched as the woman moved the bag over to a stainless steel table, put on a pair of gloves and o
pened the bag, pulling out the stiff body of bird.
“Then read the label,” added Dr Helen, reaching for the tag on the bag. “This was Mr Sunshine. It says here that Mr Sunshine was a three year old Budgie that was killed by the family cat. Our job is to confirm that.”
Dr Helen flipped the frozen bird around, examining the wings and body before spending a moment looking at its stiff feet. She spent a while working the corpse of the bird with her hands, apparently trying to un-freeze its stiff limbs so as to free them from its body and examine it properly.
“You see this,” said Dr Helen, and Ari and Chris inched forwards. “Those are bite marks. Two large canines would have punctured through the thin layer of a bird’s skin easily. There are only ten layers of cells to most avian skin, far fewer than reptiles and mammals. There is also two large haematomas surrounding the puncture marks. The blood pooling under the skin, confirms that the bird died after these injuries were made. This type of trauma is consistent with being attacked by a cat.”
Bound (The Grandor Descendant Series Book 3) Page 15
