Page 6 of Bound by the Mad Scientist

I was alone. Everyone else had trickled away among the woods. My lungs burned from running so hard. I knew I had to get away, to hide out and wait. Keep an eye and ear open to sense any approaching predator. But I couldn’t.

I kept running the path at full speed until sweat dripped into my eyes. I stopped and bent over, holding my knees. The dread of being caught out there in the dark overtook my fear of the woods, and I turned to venture inside at half speed.

Why did they play that game? It was stupid. Why did I agree to play it? I was stupid. I might have had the highest scores in every science class I took in high school and community college, but I was a dumb fuck for agreeing to be out there sweating my ass off in the freezing, dark, creepy fucking woods.

The running had stopped. Not from lack of urgency, but muscle strain. My legs needed to cool down. I was on a track scholarship, so I was sure I got far, fast, but I wasn’t a long-haul runner, and my tank only had so much.

Leaves and twigs crunching underfoot were an approaching bear. Every whistle of wind through the branches was a witch’s breath on my neck. The creaking of old oaks settling into the earth was some demon trying to pull me down beneath the moss and peat.

That steady pace needed to slow, too. I couldn’t hear shit over my own heartbeat, and the air tasted metallic. I found a tree in the moonlight and leaned against it.

My breathing settled, but my heart didn’t. It was getting easier to see in the dark, even with my shitty eyes. The moon was bright in the clearing, but all around me was a wall of dark nature, which made things worse. I caught movement to my left, and snapped my neck so hard to see it that I got dizzy.

The nauseating dampness of the earth and rotting vegetation filled my sinuses like smog. The silence was blaring. Each scurrying creature in the dark registered like a bullhorn.

My hat must’ve taken flight as I ran. No one could have caught up to me. I had gone so far and so fast, I had to be relatively safe. For a little while at least.

I heard him before I saw him, but I had no idea how he got so close without me noticing. Kel moved from behind a tree just outside the clearing to another one closer to me.

How did I know it was him? How did he get to me so quickly? Was he really there? Or was I legit going mad in the dark woods all by myself? It was him. I just knew, in my gut, it was.

I didn’t want to look around frantically and give away that I heard him, but also, I was freaking the FUCK out. And short of calling out his name like some damsel in distress, I didn’t know what the fuck to do.

Kel jumped out from behind the tree that had become my sanctuary. My fight-or-flight instinct came alive, and I sidestepped him, missing his attempted tackle.

He landed in the wet leaves and assorted decay, but I only saw him on the ground for a single instant. It sent ice through my whole body. Kelvin Manchester, the first real friend I made at Whitcomb, my microbiology course assistant, and one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, looked fucking feral.

He still wore his glasses, but his lab coat was filthy and torn to shreds at the bottom. A pocket was missing. One sleeve hung by a thread, while the other had a gash up to his elbow. As he stood up, he ripped the hanging sleeve off, and then, to my shock and horror, did the same to the other, perfectly sewn-in sleeve, like it was tissue paper.

I couldn’t understand what I was seeing. Other than his disheveled clothes, nothing was that different about him, yet everything was. My pulse blared in my ears, and saliva pooled in my mouth. I could smell him. His cologne and his sweat, and something deeper, something… good. Really good.

Kel removed his glasses and put them in his pants pocket. Even in the dim moonlight, I could tell his eyes were dilated, and his nostrils were flared. But he seemed to be breathing normally. Not as if he just booked it through the woods to catch up with me.

He met my eye and smiled. “Found you.”

The next thing I knew, he was running after me.

That primal instinct surged through my veins. I turned on my heel and dashed as fast as I could through the trees. The burn in my lungs came back with a roar.

I kept looking over my shoulder, which meant I wasn’t watching where I was going. It didn’t even look like he was trying too hard to keep up with me. Or maybe it was that he could overtake me at any moment, tackle me to the ground, press his weight onto me, and… take me back to the manor.

I didn’t see the tree in front of me. Not until my face was about to smash right into it. Going at that speed, I had no other option. Trying to stop dead in my tracks could end up in a serious injury. I had to hope whatever the tree did to me wasn’t as bad. Or that Kel catching me wasn’t somehow worse.

The tree vanished, and the world spun. My back landed hard against something solid and warm. Naked, strong arms wrapped around my body, holding me so tight it almost hurt as the world stilled. In front of me lay the path I had just crashed through.

Kel had caught me, flipped me around, and taken the impact against the tree with his back. But how in the fucking—

Before I could orient myself, the world spun again. The path was gone, and my back was against the damp, mossy tree. Kel’s face was in mine, his arms on either side of my shoulders.

His eyes were… I couldn’t describe them. Every shade of gold and brown and honey and amber. His breath didn’t smell like beer, but cranberries and cinnamon. His wet lips parted and I…

“Got you,” he said, with the shittiest, most devastating grin I’d ever seen.

Kel grabbed my face and kissed me.

Nothing made sense. Nothing was clear. But his aggression lit something inside of me I didn’t know was there. Or ignored my whole life. I kissed him back. Our tongues wrestled as he gripped my head. I found his waist and took hold, bringing the warmth of his body to mine.

I was kissing a man for the first time in my life. Why was I kissing a man for the first time in my life? I didn’t like guys. I’d never looked at my buddies with a side eye or peeked in the locker room. I never even ventured into the bi category of porn. Yet this man had his tongue in my mouth, and I had mine in his, and it was fucking everything.