Chapter 2 - Echoes in the Sterilized Air
The red wax ear lay on the white tiles like a fallen drop of fresh blood, pulsing under the harsh fluorescent lights of Dr. Vance’s laboratory. Leo twisted his wrists frantically, the heavy plaster cuffs scraping against the metal table edges with a dull, grating thud. His skin felt raw inside the hardening mold, trapped between chemical heat and pure panic.
"Maya, someone is in the hallway," Leo whispered, his voice tight with terror as he nodded toward the heavy oak door leading out to the campus courtyard. "Tell me you locked that deadbolt when you dragged me in here."
Maya didn't answer immediately. Her wide blue eyes remained glued to the muddy bootprints near the corner. Slowly, she lowered her hands from her mouth, her breath coming in shallow, ragged gasps. The playful, reckless anger she had worn moments ago had vanished, replaced by a cold, trembling dread that seemed to drain all the color from her face.
"I... I thought I did," Maya murmured, backing away from the table until the back of her legs hit a rolling supply cart full of scalpels and glass vials. "I turned the latch twice, Leo. Nobody should have been able to get through unless they had a master key from the dean’s office."
"Well, somebody has one," Leo hissed, straining his neck to see past the racks of anatomical models. "And if they saw you plastering my hands to a surgical table, we aren't just getting suspended. We're looking at criminal charges, or worse. Get these things off me, Maya! Use a scalpel, use a hammer, do something!"
"I can't just chisel them off, you moron!" Maya hissed back, darting forward to grab a heavy metal wrench from the tool tray. "If I hit the plaster wrong, I'll shatter your finger bones. The mixture has to cure completely before I can score it safely."
A slow, deliberate knock echoed against the heavy oak door. Thump. Thump. Thump.
May you like
Neither of them breathed. The silence in the laboratory grew suffocating, broken only by the steady drip of a leaky sink faucet somewhere in the back prep room. Then, the brass door handle began to turn downward with a slow, agonizing squeak.
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