Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 101399 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101399 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
“I’ll definitely have a story to tell.” I ran my hand down Sebastian’s coat.
“Good. And I know you know, but I love you.”
“I love you, too.” Tears prickled. “Merry Christmas.”
“Same to you.” The line went quiet.
My mind wandered back to the house in the hills. Every day of my captivity was clear in my mind. The kidnapping, the surveillance, the anklet, the library, the greenhouse—the memories created a unique prison.
My captivity was like a peculiar, violent bird; I had to keep it caged and away from everyone lest it tear them to pieces. Including me. I pushed the thoughts of Sebastian down, forcing them to the background. Grabbing his coat, I carried it into the hallway and shoved it in the entryway closet.
I crawled back into bed and closed my eyes. Despite my efforts at locking Sebastian away, images of him lulled me to sleep. His voice and his body pulled me into the darkness—the only place I ever felt truly alive.
“Welcome back.” I loaded my set of PowerPoint slides for the day as the students chattered. A light dusting of snow had fallen overnight, given the Trenton grounds a wintery look for the start of the spring semester.
“How was your trip?” Mint slid into his desk and opened his laptop.
“Great.” I’d tried explaining to him via text that I’d been preoccupied with my work to the point of seeming rude in my texts. He didn’t buy it. No matter how many different points of the Amazon ecosystem I described, how many species of plant I named, he simply refused to believe that I’d ever made it to the airport, much less flown to Brazil. But he seemed appeased that I was none the worse for wear, no matter what he suspected had happened to me.
“Let’s discuss your Christmas break projects on photosynthesis. Jenna, would you like to start?”
A hum began outside, the low sound of several engines approaching.
Jenna stood and adjusted her cat-eye glasses. “Instead of the common photoautotrophs the other students used, I chose a particular version of bacteria that doesn’t synthesize carbon from the atmosphere. Instead, it’s a photoheterotrophs, a bacteria that’s able to convert carbon from other sources to complete photosynthesis.”
Mint stared at Jenna—the same as he did in almost every class last semester—his eyes lighting up. I made a mental note to do some matchmaking.
“Interesting.” I leaned on my desk. “Though photoheterotrophs don’t use carbon from the atmosphere, do they use any other element?”
She shoved a lock of hair behind her ear, a nervous movement that reminded me of myself. “I believe they are nitrogen fixers, but my experiments never yielded a measurable ammonia byproduct.”
Impressed was too mild a word. Maybe I had taught these students as well as I’d hoped. The background hum grew louder, and my pen rattled on my desk.
Heads turned toward the sunny windows. A line of trucks rolled down Campus Drive. Three were laden with building materials—wood, glass, electrical wire. The others carried construction equipment. They pulled up near the greenhouse, the sound of shattering glass cutting through the rumble of engines.
I took off, out my door, down the hallway where I almost bowled Gregory over, and then toward the greenhouse.
“Hey!” Gregory caught up, and we dashed outside as two men in hardhats walked up to the greenhouse’s entrance.
“What are you doing?” I skidded to a stop in front of the men, the icy walk almost spelling my doom.
“Camille.” Gregory didn’t have as much luck with the ice. He slid, stumbled, and fell into me, both of us tumbling to the snowy grass as a cacophony of laughter burst from the classroom windows at our backs.
The nearest man reached down to help me up. I gripped his hand and yanked myself off the ground as the snow melted into the skirt material on my ass.
“You can’t tear this down,” I sputtered.
The second guy in the hardhat scratched his chin. “We aren’t.”
I pointed to the bottom panes of glass that had busted. “What about that?”
“Accident.” The second man shrugged. “We’re going to replace all the glass anyway. It’s part of the expansion.”
Gregory got to his feet and dusted himself off. “Girl, you need to give me a little more warning the next time you go sprinting through the hallway like that. I thought something was on fire.” He adjusted his bow tie back to perfection.
“Sorry.” My face bloomed with heat when I saw all my students staring at me out the windows. “I just assumed—”
“Don’t worry.” The first man smiled. “We have express orders from Mr. Lindstrom and the headmistress that the greenhouse is to be preserved and expanded.” He waved some of the working men over, and they fell into discussions about how to stage the construction.
“Come on.” Gregory pulled me toward the double doors leading back to the hall. “I think we’ve embarrassed ourselves enough for the day.”