The Experimental Murders (Elysium #2)

Chapter Twenty-Five

 Trinket nearly fell down the stairs in her rush to the laboratory. She couldn't get the image of Booker spewing that horrible liquid out of her head. Looking so weak. So fragile.

It shook her to her very core.

Dying.

Dying.

He's dying.

Lost in her thoughts, she didn't see Daphne until she crashed into her just feet away from the laboratory door. The woman grabbed her shoulders to steady her, peering at her with a questioning expression.

"I . . . Booker . . . he . . ."

Squinting, Daphne gave her a gentle shake, as if to rattle some sense into her.

She hardly knew where to begin. Words would not come easily. Swallowing, she tried again. "Something is wrong with Booker. He's clammy and seems to be delirious. And he's retching up this sickly-looking fluid."

Understanding dawned on Daphne's face, and with a calm urgency, she took Trinket's hand and pulled her back towards the stairs. With what composure she could muster, Trinket led her up to Booker's room. Without hesitation, Daphne marched over to the bed and began examining him. He was no longer retching, but he was still in a semi-conscious state.

Trinket hovered behind Daphne, wringing her hands as she watched her open his eyelids, check his pulse, and listen to his breathing. She felt helpless. She didn't know anything about medicine. Booker was the doctor. He was the one who fixed people.

So who was going to fix him?

Dying, dying, dying.

He's going to die.

Die, die, die.

Trinket shook her head, but the voices continued as shadowy figures closed in around her.

Daphne tapped her fingers against her lips as her eyes darted about the room. They stopped on Booker's writing desk, and she rushed over to it. Pulling out a piece of parchment and a pen, she quickly scribbled something down and pressed the paper into Trinket's hand. Trinket glanced down at the beautiful handwriting.

Mint for his nausea.

Not wasting a moment, she ran back down the stairs and fumbled with her key to unlock the laboratory door. She rushed to the shelf where she knew he kept the mint leaves and found the container. Before she went to leave, though, she caught sight of something in the sink.

A jar.

Placing the mint on the counter and picking the empty jar up, she realized it was the one in which Booker stored his homemade drug. She turned it over in her hands and discovered that it was empty. She glanced back down at the sink, and the memory of her first few nights here came to mind. The muscle aches, the delirium, the feeling that she was about to vomit all over the rug.

All because she had stopped taking the drugs Elysium had forced on her for an entire year.

"Oh, Lord, Booker," she mumbled, fear rising in her throat.

Tossing the jar back in the sink, she grabbed the mint and raced up the stairs.

How long had Booker been taking those drugs? Years? And every day? If she had such a violent reaction to a year's worth of reliance on opium, what would he have to go through after years of it? And it wasn't opium. This was something else altogether. Something she knew absolutely nothing about. Something only he was knowledgeable of.