“—in Houston?” Rocío is asking.

“Five or six years,” a deep voice answers. Levi’s.

“And how many times have you seen La Llorona?”

A pause. “Is that the woman from the legend?”

“Not a woman,” she scoffs. “A tall lady ghost with dark hair. Wronged by a man, she drowned her own children in revenge. Now she dresses in white, like a bride, and weeps on the banks of rivers and streams throughout the south.”

“Because she regrets it?”

“No. She’s trying to lure more children to bodies of water and drown them. She’s amazing. I want to be her.”

Levi’s soft laugh surprises me. And so does his tone, gently teasing.

Warm. What the hell? “I’ve never had the, um, pleasure, but I can recommend nearby hiking trails

with water. I’ll send you an email.”

What is happening? Why is he conversing? Like a normal person? Not with grunts, or nods, or clipped fragments of words, but in actual sentences?

And why is he promising to send emails? Does he know how to? And why, why, why am I thinking about the way he pinned me against that stupid wall? Again?

“That would be great. I normally avoid nature, but I am ready to brave clean air and sunlight for my favorite celebrity.”

“I don’t think she qualifies as a—”

I step into the office and immediately halt, dumbstruck by the most extraordinary sight I have ever laid my eyes upon.

Dr. Levi Ward. Is. Smiling.

Apparently, The Wardass can smile. At people. He possesses the necessary facial muscles. Though the second I step inside, his dimpled, boyish grin fades, and his eyes darken. Maybe he can only smile at some people? Maybe I’m just not considered “people”?

“Morning, boss.” Rocío waves at me from her desk. “Levi let me in. Our badges still aren’t working.”

“Thanks, Levi. Any idea when they will?”

Icy green. Can green be icy? The one in his eyes sure manages to. “We’re working on it.” He makes for the door, and I think he’s going to leave, but instead he picks up the refill bottle I dragged here, lifts it with one hand—

one! (1)!

hand!—and lodges it on top of the cooler.

“You don’t have to—”

“It’s no problem,” he says. He should be sent to jail for the way his biceps look. At least for a little bit. Also, please lock him up for being gone before I can ask if our equipment will ever arrive, if he’ll ever answer my emails, if I’ll ever be worthy of a compound sentence made of multiple clauses.

“Boss?”

I slowly turn to Rocío. She’s looking at me, inquisitive.

“Yep?”

“I don’t think Levi likes you very much.”

I sigh. I shouldn’t be involving Rocío in this weird feud of ours—partly because it seems unprofessional, partly because I’m not sure what she’ll blurt out at the most inappropriate moment. On the other hand, there’s no point in denying the obvious. “We know each other from before. Levi and I.”

“Before you publicly announced that he’s shit at neuroscience, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

“I see.”

“You do?”

“Of course. You two had a passionate love story that slowly soured, culminating when you caught Levi in an intimate embrace with your butler, stabbed his abdomen sixty-nine times, and left him for dead—only to be astonished to find him still alive when you arrived in Houston.”

I cock my head. “Do you really think two scientists could afford a butler?”

She mulls it over. “Okay, that part’s unrealistic.”

“Levi and I were in grad school together. And we . . .” I honestly have no idea how to put it diplomatically. I want to say “didn’t get along,” but there

was never an along to be gotten. We never interacted, because he discouraged it or avoided it. “He was never a fan.”

She nods like she finds the idea relatable. That little scorpion. I love her.

“Did he hate you at first sight, or did he grow into it?”

“Oh, he—” I stop short.

I actually have no idea. I try to think back to my first meeting with him, but I can’t remember it. It must have been on my first day of grad school, when Tim and I joined Sam’s lab, but I have no memories. He was vaguely hostile to me well before the incident in Sam’s office, when he declined to collaborate, but I can’t place the start of it. Interesting. I guess Tim or Annie might know. Except that I’d rather slowly perish from cobalt poisoning than ever speak to either of them again.

“I’m not sure.” I shrug. “A combination?”

“Is Levi’s dislike related to the fact that I just spent a week on TikTok because I don’t have a decent computer to work on?”

I plop down in my chair. I suspect the two things are very related, but it’s not as if I can prove it, or know what to do about it. It’s an isolating situation.

I’ve considered talking to other people here at NASA, or even at NIH, but they’d just point out that Levi needs me to make the project succeed, and that the idea of him self-sabotaging just to sabotage me is preposterous.

They might even think that I’m the one who’s in the wrong, since I haven’t proven myself as a project leader yet.

And there’s something else to consider. Something that I don’t want to say out loud, or even think in my head, but here goes: if my career is a sapling, Levi’s is a baobab. It can withstand a lot more. He has a history of completed grants and successful collaborations. BLINK’s failure would be a bump in the road for him, and a car-totaling crash for me.

Am I being paranoid? Probably. I need to lay off the coffee and stop spending my nights plotting Levi’s demise. He’s living rent free in my head.

Meanwhile, he doesn’t even know my last name.