Page 12

CHAPTER

ELEVEN

KARLIN

K arlin bolted upright in bed, her brain taking a couple of seconds to catch up with her body.

It was still dark outside her staff cabin, and somewhere in the distance, she heard a strange sound carried on the wind. She couldn’t quite place what it was, but it had been different enough from the usual sounds of the desert to set her heart racing.

She reached over to her nightstand and glanced at her alarm clock, blinking away sleep.

Already, the sound had faded away. Perhaps she had imagined it entirely, stuck somewhere halfway between dream and waking.

But in any case, despite her exhaustion from being up so late the night before, it was too late now to bother going back to bed.

As she took a shower and got dressed for the day ahead, she found her mind drifting to thoughts of Axel.

She cringed as she remembered the way she’d reacted when he had touched her shoulder. It was such an innocent, meaningless touch, and yet she had recoiled as if his fingertips had scalded her.

“Why was I such a jerk?” she muttered under her breath as she tossed a few items into her black leather tote, including the wrinkled photo of John.

She had never been the victim of anything that would provoke such a reaction, and yet, she’d always hated being touched. Something about it signaled a level of trust in others that she almost never felt. She was happy to give her brother a big hug when they saw each other, but that was about it.

Not that anyone else wanted to hug her anyway.

As she stepped through the door, she could see that the sun had just begun to rise, painting a slim line of pink along the eastern horizon. She shivered as she made her way in the direction of the on-site office and lab, her racing thoughts momentarily cast aside by the chilly breeze.

By the time she slid her keys into the lock and let herself into the lab, however, the nagging thoughts of her and Axel’s conversation had returned.

Clearly, he was uncomfortable with DX8, and she wasn’t surprised.

Her brother had developed the same attitude after becoming a Christian.

She couldn’t entirely disagree with him, either.

Karlin had taken several different psychedelics in the past in order to aid in her research of DX8. She’d even spent a month in Peru on an extended ayahuasca retreat. And yet, she’d never liked the feeling that the drugs gave her.

Frankly, they scared her.

But unlike John and possibly Axel, she didn’t think that demons were involved. She understood the science of these compounds better than almost anyone else in the world, and it was clear to her that the effects of psychedelics were caused solely by the brain and within the brain.

People might have used the drugs throughout the ages for various religious purposes, even including terrible ones like ritual sex acts and human sacrifice, but at their core, they were a mere tool based on repeatable science.

Still, she was going to respect Axel’s wishes and ensure that he would never take real DX8 during the extent of this retreat.

Fortunately, her unpleasant awakening this morning had provided her with the perfect opportunity to prep all of the doses that the patients would take throughout the week, including a placebo for Axel.

As she meandered around the lab, gathering various vials from small fridges and freezers and checking and double-checking measurements, she couldn’t help but to feel a flash of nerves prickling along her spine.

This lab was mainly used during the trial retreats, but it also served as extra storage when things got crowded down at the main Senera research lab.

One of the storage fridges that contained larger vials of completed DX8 they often used in non-human mammal testing looked slightly off to her.

She could have sworn that when she was last in here to pick some of them up, they’d been lined against the left-hand side of the fridge.

Now, apparently, a few were closer to the middle.

She glanced up at the camera overhead and took hold of the glass containers, shuffling them all back into place.

She was probably imagining it. Only a handful of people had keys to this lab, anyway, so the most likely explanation was that Bajwa had needed something when she wasn’t around to fetch it for him.

Before she could consider the matter any further, she heard her smartwatch beeping loudly from its place on her wrist.

It was later than she’d realized. Ned would be ready with breakfast in about five minutes, and the patients would be arriving soon after. Axel was probably there already, not that she was in a hurry to catch him alone again.

She needed to focus.

For the rest of the retreat, she had to be fully committed to keeping her patients safe, investigation or no investigation. They needed her.

And just like when it came to taking care of John and getting him his service dog, Karlin wasn’t going to let anything or anyone get in the way.

ASHER

Asher poured boiling water into his mug, sending the herbal tea bag bobbing along the bottom.

For once, he didn’t feel like he needed his usual coffee-induced energy boost, even after getting only a few hours of sleep.

Was this how Gabe felt all the time? Maybe his early bird of a big brother wasn’t as masochistic as he thought.

After his meeting with Karlin last night, he had found it easy to hop out of bed, though unfortunately, she hadn’t appeared at the dining hall until half of the guests had already arrived.

He picked up his breakfast plate, once again disproportionately laden with eggs, and began to saunter over to where she was sitting.

Before he could get any closer, however, she shot him a look which wasn’t difficult to read.

She was sitting with Bajwa and Ned, and the three were lost in their own conversation.

Apparently, the staff were sitting alone today.

“Sup, everyone?” he said, sliding into a chair at the far end of the table next to Destiny and Paul. Lily and Cora sat down shortly after, both carrying heaping plates of fruit salad.

“Morning!” Lily said cheerfully, stabbing at a large strawberry with her fork.

Soon the group was buzzing with conversation, but Asher found his eyes drifting to the other end of the table as he wondered what Karlin, Bajwa, and Ned were discussing.

Hopefully something boring. In any case, Karlin would fill him in on anything important, and in the meantime, he might learn something from his fellow guests.

“So, has anyone here tried DX8 before?” Cora was asking, her dark eyes wide with excitement. “I’ve tried shrooms a few times, and totally wimped out on taking salvia once. That’s it, though.”

“Definitely not me,” Paul said, shaking his head. “I’ve never touched anything stronger than a beer. My nephew is an addict, and I’ve seen where it leads.”

“I was an only child, with super strict parents, so I got a little wild with the Mary Jane in college, I’ll admit,” Lily said, offering Paul a wink. “But I’m looking forward to my first psychedelic journey!”

Asher glanced between the two oldest retreat attendees.

Sometimes, judging people by how they looked made a whole lot of sense.

Absolutely nothing about Paul’s down-home attire or demeanor indicated that he’d be interested in this sort of retreat. Asher wondered what his story was, but he supposed he had to have a reason for being here.

Lily, on the other hand, looked like she’d never left the flower-child era, even though she looked too young to have actually been part of the original hippie movement.

Today, she was wearing an actual tie-dye scarf to hold her long silver hair back, paired with a bright red tunic over loose acid-wash jeans.

It was hardly a surprise to Asher that she’d wound up here.

“I’ve never even had alcohol before,” Destiny chimed in. “This is going to be a big step.”

She fingered the cross necklace she wore absentmindedly, but Asher certainly noticed. He felt a pang of worry for the soft-spoken woman. Did she share his concerns about DX8 based on her own faith? But if she did, why would she be here?

“No alcohol? Ever?” Cora asked, leaning over the table until the ends of her wavy hair nearly ended up in her empty oatmeal bowl.

Destiny smiled and shook her head, her curls bouncing. “I grew up in a church that really emphasized staying away from drinking. I’m not sure what I think about that these days, to be honest, but I’ve kind of just kept up the habit.”

Cora’s expression moved from horror to fascination. “Woah. That’s intense. I mean, my grandmother goes to church sometimes, but I don’t think I know anyone that intense.”

“Admittedly, you are from Los Angeles,” Destiny teased. “Things are different in Dallas.”

“Amen to that,” Asher added, raising his empty tea mug into the air.

He couldn’t help but to feel a little pity for Cora. She was clearly the youngest in the group by quite a few years, and he knew that thanks to TikTok and all the rest, the broader culture she had grown up in was a lot different than his own.

He stole a glance in Karlin’s direction, noticing the fake smile she’d slapped on as Bajwa said something to her and Ned. He doubted Karlin could tell him very much about the backgrounds of the other guests unless he had a good reason to ask, but he was definitely curious about how much she knew.

“So, how about you, Axel?” Cora asked, raising her own tea mug and clinking it against his own. “I gotta admit, you look kind of like a guy who has tried it all.”

Touché.

Judging a book by its cover worked, but not always.

“Nah, not me,” he said, offering her a breezy smile. “I like a cold Bud after band practice once in a while, but I’m not into anything else.”

Paul said nothing, but gave him an approving nod from his place across the table. Well, if name dropping cheap beer was all that was required to get into the man’s good graces, he’d happily take it.