Page 254 of Claim Me
Mine is unwavering.
???
Blue spends the next few weeks in his lab for hours on end, working on something with great passion and focus.
He’s in a good mood, upbeat in a way that’s almost unlike him.
Whenever I try to get him to tell me what has him so absorbed, he just gives me that secretive smile and says that I’ll find out soon, that it’s going to be a real breakthrough… you could even call it thework of his life.
"The work of your life? That sounds incredible. Can you at least give me a hint?" I ask, a little shy, pressing my lips to the warm skin at the back of his neck.
But he slips out of my arms with ease and shakes his head.
"Classified. Top secret. Until the whole world knows about it," he says, winking at me.
I tilt my head slightly, a little teasingly, and say, "You know, technically I still have my ways of finding out what you’re up to…"
Blue snorts and lightly wags a finger at me.
"I got smarter about that. I use different glasses in the lab now. Ones that can record, but don’t allow outside access. I have to manually transfer everything with a micro USB." He lets out a slightly theatrical sigh.
I hesitate for a moment as a thought suddenly occurs to me.
"Blue… do you think Director Flanegin might have actually been interested in your secret project?"
Blue pauses briefly. "Theoretically, yes. But that project was never publicly announced by me. Only Adams and a few of his direct subordinates know about it… Flanegin definitely wouldn’t have had any easy way of finding out."
He scratches thoughtfully at his chin, deep in thought, and suddenly something clicks in my head.
"Maybe around the time he first connected to your systems, you were launching some other project that was public? Something that attracted attention? Maybe Flanegin was working for someone else."
"That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking. There were a few projects like that. One of them was the Alpha Activation program. It’s a very small project, completely overshadowed by Beta Activation, almost operating on the sidelines of it, but we were using some very bold and groundbreaking methods there. However…"
He suddenly trails off.
"Wait. Is that the program you talked about with Marlow once?"
"Yes. Interesting… Exactly three days after Flanegin left, the program had to shut down because… hmm. Its main subject, Mr. Fenn Drax, received an offer from another company and left."
"Which company?"
"Welrun Corporation."
A deep, thoughtful silence settles in.
"Did Flanegin have any connections to them?"
Blue shrugs. "I don’t know. But maybe we should look into this more closely…"
For a long moment afterward, he just stands there with a deep frown, lost in thought.
The same day, we get a message from Detective Arnold that the case against Marcel has taken a complicated turn. He’s been diagnosed at the hospital, and there’s a malignant tumor in his frontal lobe, one that’s growing fast enough to already affect how he functions and possibly the course of the trial itself.
Edgar remains in prison and is facing charges of kidnapping, attempted rape, and collaboration with a terrorist organization, but Marcel might not even make it to trial, and his condition could be considered a mitigating factor if experts determine his mental capacity was impaired.
I have to admit, the news doesn’t surprise me, since Blue had already suggested something like this. But the possibility that the bastard might avoid a trial is making me super angry. Maybe I’m a vindictive person, maybe I hold grudges, but what he planned for us feels outright monstrous, and I can’t just brush it off like it never happened.
Blue catches me off guard, though, when one morning at breakfast he says he wants to visit Marcel in the prison hospital.
