Chapter 76

Nina

I returned to my room, still aggravated that my mother had suddenly shown up unannounced. After months of hardly speaking to me, she comes all this way just over a scraped knee? I felt as though there was something else she wasn’t telling me, but I had too much on my mind to care at the moment.

Sighing, I steeled my nerves and gathered my things to make my way across campus toward the chemistry lab. Despite how uncomfortable my mother made me, I had a lab report to finish. If I was lucky and worked efficiently enough, I could possibly finish my lab assignment and get home before midnight; with everything going on lately, I had fallen far behind on my assignments, which was completely out of character for me. Talking to my mother and hearing her nonchalant attitude toward Taylor’s chronic pain once again only made me feel even more pressured to perform well so I could have the means to take care of him someday, so now I felt even more guilty for letting things get in the way of my studies.

The quad was bustling with students as I headed toward the chemistry lab. I still received some dirty looks and heard whispers coming from other girls, but what was even more disconcerting was the countless smiles and greetings from the dozens of other students who strangely approved of our ‘relationship’. I knew I should’ve been happy that people were actually seeing me as a person for once and not a nerdy nobody, but the positive attention felt alien to me, not to mention the fact that Enzo and I were not actually together. It was as if being public with my non-relationship with Enzo turned me into an automatic celebrity. I just wanted to get to the lab, focus on my work, and not be bothered by anybody.

“It’s Nina!” I heard one girl whisper as I crossed the quad.

“They were so cute together at the hockey game.”

“I’m so happy that Enzo is finally happy! I mean, I had hoped he would notice me, of course, but I’m okay with it so long as he’s in a loving relationship.”

I kept my head down, picking up my speed as I felt my face get hot. Some people weren’t even trying to hide their blatant conversations about me! When I finally made it to the science building, I let out a sigh of relief to see that the halls were quiet and mostly dark. Peace at last…

I was walking down the dimly lit hallway toward the chemistry lab and digging through my bag for my notebook, muttering to myself, when I suddenly bumped into someone coming out of the chemistry lab.

“Oh! I’m sorry!” I said, taking a step back and looking up at the tall man who I had bumped into.

It was Edward.

“Hello, Nina,” he said with a smile. I swallowed. Why was Edward in the chemistry lab? My eyes flickered down to see that he was holding something in his hands. Something small and made of glass, like… a vial. He noticed me looking and quickly stuck his hands in his pockets.

“S-Sorry,” I said, sidestepping around him. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

Edward’s eyes followed me. There was something steely and cold about them, but there was also a hint of something else behind his wide-eyed gaze. I couldn’t quite place my finger on what it was, but it felt like he was hiding something. Like he was guilty, and I had caught him in the middle of something.

“No worries, Nina,” he said, his face quickly reverting back to his usual calm and collected demeanor. “Happens to the best of us.”

I let out a nervous chuckle, and before I could say anything else, Edward turned on his heel and briskly walked away. I watched in a state of moderate shock as he disappeared around a corner.

“Strange…” I whispered to myself, staring down the hall for a few moments before turning back toward the chemistry lab door and opening it. There was no doubt in my mind that Edward was hiding something, but what? What had he slipped into his pocket, and why had he appeared as though he was caught in the act of something?

Furthermore, could he tell that his hypnotism hadn’t worked the last time? Could he sense the look in my eyes that I knew about werewolves? Could he sense that… I was at least part werewolf, just like Enzo claimed?

I shuddered and stepped into the chemistry lab, locking the door behind me.

As I worked diligently on my project for the next few hours, carefully mixing chemicals to make solutions, I couldn’t help but wonder about what I had seen in the hallway…

And I couldn’t help but wonder if Edward had mixed some sort of solution in here himself.

…

It was almost midnight by the time I finished my project. Satisfied with my work, I finished recording my notes on my lab report and ripped the pages out of my notebook, stapling them together and slipping them into the professor’s mailbox along with all of the other students’ work. Once I was finished, I cleaned up my work station, carefully disposed of the solutions in the chemical waste container, and thoroughly washed my hands before gathering my bag and heading out.

The building was entirely dark by the time I left, and the quad was quiet and empty as I walked back to my dorm. I could practically feel the dark circles under my drooping eyelids, my feet so tired that I nearly stumbled over myself as I walked up the stairs to my suite, and my pillow called to me.

Jessica and Lori had already gone to sleep when I got home, which I was somewhat grateful for as I felt too exhausted to talk to anyone. I kicked off my shoes and threw my bag down on the counter, quickly grabbing a slice of leftover pizza from the fridge to gobble down before heading into my room.

As I walked into my room and flicked on the lamp, however, I was reminded of my mother being here earlier. My room felt oddly violated, and I shivered a bit in disgust as I took a bite of my pizza. She was my mother -- my adoptive mother, but the only mother I had ever known -- but it felt odd to have her suddenly come and visit for something as small as a scraped knee. My mother had always been cold toward me and never cared much for me, especially since she divorced the man she was married to when Taylor and I were children, so it was extremely out of character for her to drive three hours to check on me for something so small. She hadn’t even bothered to make the drive out here one semester when I was extremely sick in the hospital for the flu.

Sighing, I sat down on the edge of my bed and slowly chewed my pizza while I puzzled over what had happened earlier today -- and as I did, something caught my eye.

My bedside table drawer was wide open, when I knew I had closed it because I had placed the baby picture Enzo gave me inside the drawer the night before…

The drawer was now open, and the picture was gone.