Last to Leave the Room by Caitlin Starling

Author:Caitlin Starling
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

Chapter Twenty-Three

The sun sets golden through the windows. Tamsin curls up on the living room couch and stares at her phone.

She owes Lachlan a call.

With any luck, it will be perfunctory. A quick exchange of greetings, a reassurance that she’s feeling a little better, and Lachlan, perhaps, giving her a brief recapitulation of her lecture from the day before. She’s been good after all. Bolted to her laptop for most of the afternoon, after the argument with Prime, working away and only taking one more basement break, even though she would have preferred to take shelter down there all day long.

But Lachlan’s contact info glows up at her accusingly. The last two times she found herself here, she’d been at a crossroads. She could have told Lachlan about the door. Could have told her about Prime, right from the very beginning. If she’d just told her back then, how differently would this have turned out?

She would have taken you away, Tamsin tells herself, the exact reason why she didn’t make those calls. She wouldn’t have helped you.

Unless, of course, being taken away was exactly what she’d needed.

Her thumb ghosts over the touch screen, her breathing speeding up, growing ragged and audible. She fights down the response even as she teeters on a knife’s edge; on the one side, a rejection of being minded, carefully monitored, treated like a child. On the other, the tantalizing opportunity to no longer be responsible for any of this.

She feels both. Wants both. It makes no sense. She simultaneously wants to be rescued and to be left alone to keep digging.

She stabs the Call button.

It rings twice. “Dr. Rivers,” Lachlan greets.

“Mx. Woodfield.” Her voice is admirably even. “This is my daily check-in.”

“Timely. I appreciate it.” There’s no hint of a smile in Lachlan’s tone. “How was your day?”

It’s an oddly domestic question. Out of place for them. She can’t tell if it’s genuine fondness or proprietary derision. Both options make her want to hang up. Both options make it impossible to tell the truth: I split time between the research you know about and the thing I’ve been lying about.

“Productive,” she settles on instead. “Dr. Chaudhari found our modeling candidate, and preliminary mock-ups look promising. Mr. Valdez has suggested a resin-injection method of shoring up any more spongiform sections like the one Dr. Olsen discovered, though I’m not sure the mechanics are entirely feasible.”

Lachlan hums in approval. It’s forward momentum, even if it all feels clumsy and haphazard. “Have you had any more symptoms?”

Her throat closes up.

Say something. Anything. Tell Lachlan about the breakdown last night. About the basement. About Prime.

But the impulse dries up as quickly as it sprang forth. Those are hers. Lachlan won’t understand any of them, will only drag her out and hurt her and take from her. She’s already taken the deep nodes.

“Would I remember them if I did?” Tamsin says instead, voice brittle.

Lachlan doesn’t dignify that with a direct response. “As you apparently haven’t had the time yet, I’ve taken the liberty of scheduling those initial appointments for you,” she says instead.

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