They Killed Me in the Lab, So I Woke Up Early novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Bill

Owen arrives with a collections letter and Maren reads him by touch: he gave the Institute her name. Owen: Dr. Quillan said you'd say no first.

Owen showed up at noon with a cracked bike helmet under his arm and a pastry bag in his teeth.

"Brought you a bribe," he said around the bag. He dropped it on her kitchen table. "Cinnamon twist. Don't be mad."

Maren stood in the doorway of her own kitchen and looked at him.

He was twenty-four.

He wore his old jacket with the torn pocket.

A yellow bruise from the January crash was still fading at his temple.

In the first life she had not seen him since May, when the Institute closed its doors behind her.

She crossed the room and hugged him hard, her gloved hands flat on his back.

"Okay," Owen said into her hair. "Okay, who died?"

"Nobody. I'm glad to see you."

"You don't do this. You do the one-armed pat."

"Today I'm doing this."

He laughed, a little unsteady, and hugged her back.

They sat down at the table.

He ate half the cinnamon twist before he could stop himself.

Then he pushed the bag toward her and turned his helmet over in his hands.

"So I did a thing," he said.

"I know."

"You don't know. I haven't said it yet."

"You called the number on the flyer."

Owen's mouth fell open. "How do you...? Did Dr. Quillan call you already?"

"At nine this morning."

"She said she'd be quick." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm sorry. I didn't ask you first."

"Tell me how it happened."

"The urgent care had a flyer on the wall. Paid study, good money."

"And you had the bill in your hand."

"Thirty-one thousand four hundred dollars, Mare."

"I know the number."

"They sent it to collections last week." His voice cracked on the word. "I have until the end of the month before they start taking my paycheck."

Maren said nothing.

"I couldn't do the study myself. I'm too jumpy, they said. But when I told her about you, she got so interested."

"What did you tell her about me?"

"That you work nights. That you never get sick. That you always know what people need before they say it."

Maren turned her mug a quarter turn on the table.

"That last one made her really happy," Owen said.

He reached across the table and put his hand over hers.

Her glove had slid down when she lifted the mug, and his hand was bare.

Skin touched skin.

She was in a fluorescent hallway with a clipboard in her hands.

Owen's own voice came out small and pleading. "Please, I'm not sure she'd want me to say. She's private. But she would help."

Under it ran a sick, sliding feeling in his stomach, the feeling of having said too much to a stranger.

Maren drew her hand back and tugged the glove up.

Owen was watching her face.

"You went somewhere," he said. "Your eyes go sideways when you do that. You do it with Ruth too."

"Do I?"

"Since you were twelve. I thought you were just spacey."

She had hidden this for fifteen years from everybody.

Her little brother had watched her the whole time and never said a word.

"I'm not mad about the call," Maren said.

"You're not?"

"No."

"Then why do you look like you're about to throw up?"

"Because I'm scared for you." She made her voice level. "I'm going to take the study."

"Wait, what? You don't have to. I'll get a second job."

"Owen."

He stopped.

"Four thousand a week," Maren said. "That's your bill in two months. I can do two months."

"Mare, it's a lab. They hook you up to things."

"They hook you up to things at the hospice too. I'll be fine."

She said it steadily and meant none of it.

She had a plan, but a plan was only words until she was inside that building.

The only way to fight the Institute was from within, where she could see every door.

Owen studied her for a long time.

"You're doing the thing with your jaw," he said at last. "You did it when you took Mom's side against that landlord."

"Eat your pastry."

"I'm serious. If it feels wrong, even a little, you walk out. Promise me. I don't care about the bill."

She wanted to tell him everything.

She wanted to say that she had died in that building and felt every second.

If she told him, he would do something brave and stupid. Owen always did.

"I promise," Maren said.

It was the first lie she had ever told him.

His phone buzzed on the table between them.

Owen glanced at it and grinned with relief. "That's her. Dr. Quillan. She's already texting me, she's so nice. She says..."

He stopped reading aloud.

"What does she say?"

"'Tell your sister to bring her gloves on Thursday. We'll keep the room warm.'" Owen frowned at the screen. "That's weird."

Maren set her mug down very carefully.

"Why is it weird?"

"Because I never told her about the gloves."

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