The Vermillion Strain: Book I

Chapter 15

Dylan questioned his hearing. How could they experiment on a body without the proper consent? There was no way. "Uh, no," he said. "That's illegal. That's not even a thing. You can't possibly do that."

"Normally it would be, but there's an emergency order and I don't really understand the whole thing, but we can, and we'll have to," he informed him.

Dylan stared at Matt for several seconds as silent rage flowed through him, threatening to spill out in the form of screaming, throwing something, or punching the nearest person, who happened to be the bringer of all this horrendous news. Instead, it came out in maniacal laughter. A confused look crossed Matt's face, who eventually engaged in his own forced laughter.

"Why are we laughing?" he asked nervously.

"Who even knows?" Dylan shrugged, his raucous laughter beginning to give way to something more desperate sounding. "So let me get this straight," he started as his laughter subsided. "I'm NEVER going to get my fiancé's body back, we will NEVER be able to have a funeral for her, and you're going to cut her up and run science experiments on her?"

"We may not cut her up. She could be bisected. Worst-case scenario, she's quartered."

Dylan's jaw dropped and one hand flew to his mouth while the other flew to his chest in perfect synchronicity, but Matt didn't seem to notice.

"But more likely, it would be a lot of organ removal, and pieces of things removed rather than the entirety of them. It's not going to be, you know, some crazy mafia thing where she's chopped up into tons of pieces, you know?"

Dylan's stomach quivered and every attempt to speak made him feel like he was choking. But he finally managed. "Is that supposed to be comforting?" His voice was strained.

Matt looked at him like a child who just found out they had put their clothes on backwards. "Was it not?"

Dylan didn't answer. With a shaky hand, he signed the form and handed him the clipboard.

"Well, uh, you know, I do have all her belongings. You can have those," Matt said. He handed Dylan the blue bag, which he did his best to look through despite the tremors that he couldn't shake. In it was most of what Victoria had on her at the time of her death: her shirt, her jeans, her earrings, her socks, her shoes, and, of course, her engagement ring. "Everything has been washed, even if it doesn't look like it," Matt added.

"Oh, I can tell," Dylan said, almost to himself. "Her clothes are orange instead of bright red. Fuck. Are there any good bars around here?"

"Don't do that," Matt said quickly. "Drink at home. You have alcohol at home, right?"

Dylan nodded.

"Good. Then drink at home. And keep it that way until all this blows over. And make sure anyone you care about does the same."

Dylan narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "What's going on?"

Matt shook his head and sighed. "Something very unfortunate that was spotted and stopped and that no one should panic over, so they say," he said. "But better to be safe until that's confirmed than dead on the off chance that they're wrong, right?"

He wasn't entirely sure if he cared whether he died anymore, but he certainly didn't want to die in agony like Victoria and Sara did, so he would be taking steps to avoid that fate whether he wanted to live or not. "Yeah," he said finally. "I guess you're right."

"There's a possibility government officials might contact you," Matt added. "If you want my advice..."

"Oddly, I think I do."

"It's probably best for you not to have seen anything," he replied. "What did you really see that Deepti can't tell them? It's over now and you don't need to get tangled up in anything. Who has to know?"