Page 11 of A Lab Rat’s Guide to Fated Love

Five

Not a Mind Reader

Vir

V ir beamed at the woman before him and her lips parted in response, giving way to her full, wide smile.

She leaned closer to whisper something in his ear while their fingers brushed together.

Smoke and mist. Fire and ice. Her words made him laugh.

And his replies elicited a similar response from her.

When his eyes fluttered open to the sun warming his face, he could still hear the lilt of her trailing voice. He squeezed his eyes shut, willing himself to remember her name, their words, anything. But it all slipped away, the way it always did.

He suppressed a groan as he pushed himself upright.

His body ached all over. As if every single muscle had been wrung like a wet towel and then some.

He stretched his limbs out in front of him and his joints popped noisily.

As he dragged himself out of bed, subtle waves of Nori’s presence ebbed and flowed lazily around him.

It was concerning how acutely he was able to pick on her mood now, even when she wasn’t physically in the same room as him. Even when he wasn’t actively trying to sense her emotions at all.

He had to set up boundaries. Concrete ones. And fast.

After a quick shower, Vir braced himself before he walked out into the living room. He found Nori standing by the kitchen window, sunlight bathing her slender frame. She turned at the sound of his footsteps.

“I was about to wake you,” she said, hobbling awkwardly towards him. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine.” He frowned. Did her leg hurt? He hadn’t found any painkillers in her medical kit last night. Maybe he should’ve searched in one of her other bags.

“Fine?” Nori took his wrist between her thumb and forefinger, her eyes glued to her watch. “We’re not exchanging pleasantries. Do you have bruising anywhere? Nausea? Localized pain? Soreness?”

“No nausea or bruising.” He shrugged. “My body feels sore. Like after a particularly hard gym day. Times ten. But nothing else.”

Nori nodded, pointing a thermometer at him next.

She appeared satisfied at the reading. “The soreness might get a bit worse before it gets better as your body gets used to the mites. I might need to tweak the script based on your data later. Come, I’ll show you.

” She took his hand and led him to the small white dining table by the window, where her laptop sat with its screen divided into quadrants, each showing rows of data being input remotely.

“It’s all being transmitted by the mites in your body. I’d assumed they might take a day or two, but it’s already started. If you survive, I have big plans for this baby.”

“ If I survive?”

Her gaze shot up to his arched brow. It lingered there for a moment before she cleared her throat and met his eyes again. He sensed a hint of irritation.

“I meant when you’re cured,” she said. “Even though I know what to expect based on all my previous studies, I also don’t know what to expect, if you know what I mean. Oh, and once the mites are fully settled in, I won’t have to manually take your vitals every few hours.”

Vir watched her soft brown eyes slowly widen till they were brimming with raw, unfiltered excitement.

“The data seems to be lagging by about fifteen minutes right now. I never had that happen with any of the mice, but I’m sure I can figure out a way to reduce that.

It could be because—if I reconfigure this part here—” Nori cut off to start aggressively typing on her keyboard.

Soon she was mostly talking to herself and no longer bothered to complete her sentences out loud.

“—alerts of course, and to map them on—”

Vir scratched the back of his head, wondering if there were things left over from dinner he could eat. He hadn’t realized it before, but he was starving. Before he could look around for the backpack with food, his stomach rumbled loudly.

Loud enough for Nori to halt what she was doing and fix him with a blank stare. “Food!” She blinked. “Right. I forgot. Sorry!”

Minutes later, they sat at the dining table with a stack of peanut butter and jam sandwiches between them, and a cup of chai for Nori and milky sweet coffee for Vir.

“The car should’ve finished charging by now,” Nori announced once they were done. “I’ll head out for a bit and get some real groceries. And diesel for the generator, just in case the power goes out again. Do you need anything?”

Nori

O f course, Vir had to tag along, despite Nori’s repeated requests for him to stay back and rest. But in the end, she decided some light movement wasn’t going to kill him after all.

The navigation on her phone pointed to a gas station and a local market a few miles away, in the opposite direction from where Ryan and Fehim had gone last night. She drove to the gas station first and paid for two large diesel containers at the store .

She picked the first container by its handle and immediately let it thud back to the ground, wincing at the fresh pain that shot up her shin.

“Can you please save the heavy lifting till after your leg heals?” Vir interrupted her tirade of inward curses. “I’d prefer not having to re-do your stitches.”

He reached over and took the container from her before carrying it to the car with relative ease. While she stood there like a useless bum, chewing on the inside of her cheek. There was nothing she despised more than asking for help. Or admitting that she needed it.

No, there was. Pity. She hated pity the most.

Once both containers were in the car, Nori caught him notice her wincing again as she walked awkwardly towards the car, while trying her best not to limp and failing miserably at it.

She’d thought she didn’t mind all the staring, but maybe she did.

Especially when he was supposed to be the patient, not her.

Take your stupid lashes and point them somewhere else. She mentally scowled at him before glancing down to scowl at her feet.

“Do you mind if I drive?” Vir asked. “I haven’t driven an electric model before. It seems fun.”

Her gaze lifted to his, then quickly moved away. “Sure.”

Vir

A t the market, Nori beelined towards a busy looking clothing store where they each bought a winter jacket and some clothes for Vir. After ditching their sweatshirts in the car, they put on their new jackets before circling back for groceries.

“Is it guava season already?” Nori mused as they walked into the street lined with produce stalls on either side, her face lighting up at the sight of the pale-green fruit.

She picked one up and brought it to her nose. Her throat bobbed as if it was the most deliciously tempting aroma she had ever smelled. That, combined with the burst of joy Vir could sense emanating from her, almost made him reach for a guava, too .

But as he moved, Nori put the fruit back and shifted her attention to the next cart.

“Aren’t you getting those?” Vir asked her, confused.

“No. I hate the seeds getting stuck in my teeth,” she replied, stacking boxes of bright red strawberries in her arms. “Grandma used to scrape those off for me. Haven’t had one since she passed.”

“Why don’t you do it?” It was a simple enough step if she liked guavas that much. “Remove the seeds?”

Nori turned to look at him, and something flickered beneath the surface layer of her emotions. A kind of longing… grief. Then she blinked, and it was all gone.

It baffled Vir to see how she could just turn her emotions off at will. Not just the outward mask over her expressions, but her insides as well.

“It’s not the same,” she answered simply. And that was that.

They continued shopping for groceries for a while more before spotting a lone tea shack at the far end of the lane.

It stood at the edge of a cliff, overlooking easily one of the best hillside views Vir had seen.

The vast green valley had a sparse scattering of tiny colorful village huts in the distance, with wisps of fluffy white clouds interrupting a pink and orange sky above.

A panoramic range of misty, snowcapped mountains far in the background completed the scenery.

They took their steaming paper cups of tea and coffee, and took a seat at one of the several mismatched wooden benches nearby.

“I always wanted to live here as a kid,” Nori spoke wistfully, inhaling the steam rising from her cup.

“My grandparents lived at the cottage where we’re staying.

Grandma left it to me. I wish she hadn’t, though.

I wish she was still here.” The longing from before seeped back into her, more melancholy somehow.

But also… warm. “That was my grandpa’s favorite shirt,” she added with a grin.

Vir looked down at the plain blue t-shirt he was wearing.

“Ah,” Nori turned her attention towards the shifting hues in the distance, where bits of purple were now seeping into the oranges and the pinks. The warm glow of the setting sun reflected in the soft brown of her eyes as she whispered, “so beautiful. ”

“Yes…” Vir replied, and the sun dipped a little further to gently caress her smile, the soft contours of her face, and the loose ringlets of her hair that she hadn’t tied up today. “…beautiful.”

Nori

N ori found Vir staring at her again. It was the same curious, rounded-eyed gaze, only with bits of orange dancing in them from the dipping sun. For a few heartbeats, neither of them moved.

And then, as if someone had called his name, Vir’s head whipped to the side.

“What’s wrong?” Nori asked, watching his brow creasing into a deep frown.

She followed his gaze to a man standing near the edge of the cliff several feet away from them.

He toed at a small piece of rock for a while before finally giving it a hard kick and watched it projectile into the valley below.

Vir cursed under his breath.

“What’s wrong?” Nori asked again, following suit as he sprung to his feet.

“No. Wait here,” he warned.