My Fated Mate Chose My Sister, So I Left novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Sister from the Video

Nina's adviser drops her from his group in front of his lab, the funding goes with it, and Professor Hartley offers a paid seat on his Norway project; she says yes, and her mother is waiting outside.

My adviser's lab was full when I walked in at nine.

Eleven students sat around the long table with laptops open. Every one of them looked up.

One of them had the video paused on a screen. It showed my face, huge, with a caption across the bottom.

My adviser stood at the head of the table with his reading glasses pushed up into his grey hair.

"Ms. Corvino. Thank you for coming. I'd hoped for my office, but the department wants this said where everyone can hear."

I set my bag down. "Said what?"

"Your assistantship is being withdrawn."

The room was so quiet I heard the radiator.

"It was approved in April," I said. "I have the letter."

"It was approved for a student who would represent this program. Since yesterday, a clip of you has been seen by three million people. Donors have emailed the dean."

"It's a prank my sister filmed on me. I'm the one it was done to."

"I understand that," he said, and he did look sorry. "But the dean's office wants distance. The group can't carry a student who is, for now, a meme."

A boy at the far end of the table coughed into his hand.

"You're dropping me from the group for being filmed," I said.

"I'm dropping the funding line. You can reapply next year."

"I have a lease and a loan payment due in three weeks."

"I know. I'm sorry."

I looked around the table.

Nobody met my eyes. A girl near the window was typing, and I understood she was messaging someone about me.

My throat closed.

I picked up my bag, and the door at the back of the lab opened.

"Excuse me, Professor," said Tobias Hartley. "I'd like to borrow Ms. Corvino."

He was in the same field jacket as yesterday. He held a thin folder.

My adviser frowned. "Tobias, this is a department matter."

"It is. I just read the funding policy, and it says a withdrawn assistantship has to be offered a transfer to any visiting project with open seats."

"That's a technicality."

"It's page nine," Tobias said. "I'd be glad to show the dean."

He took off his glasses and rubbed his nose.

"Fine," he said. "Take her."

I walked out between the two of them without a word, and nobody in the lab said anything either.

In the hall Tobias handed me the folder. His hands were large, with old scars across the knuckles.

"I run a field project in Norway," he said. "We track a wolf pack in Hedmark for six months. The funding is real, and it's mine, not the department's."

I opened the folder.

There was a contract inside. A stipend. Housing. A line that said research assistant, Corvino, N.

The number was higher than my old one.

"You wrote this before I walked in," I said.

"Last night," he said. "I had a seat open. I had a feeling I'd need it."

"You've known me one day."

"I've read your work for two years," he said. "You published on den-site selection when you were an undergraduate. Not many people do."

I turned a page. My hands were steady now.

"What's the catch?"

"There's no catch. The work is cold, and wet, and I leave in nine days."

"I should think about it."

"You should," he said. "Take the night."

I looked at the contract. I looked at the door I had just walked out of.

I thought about the lab full of people who had watched me lose everything and not said a word.

"I don't need the night," I said. "Where do I sign?"

He took a pen from his jacket pocket and clicked it open.

"Then welcome to the project, Ms. Corvino."

I signed my name on the last line. The pen was warm from his pocket.

He took the folder back and, for a moment, looked past me to the end of the hall.

"There's someone outside who wants you," he said. "She's been in the car park since eight."

A cold feeling started in my stomach before he said who.

I looked through the window at the end of the hallway.

My mother stood beside her white sedan, in a pressed blouse with her gold cross outside it, arms folded, staring up at the building.

She was looking straight at me.

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