It wasn't a precise counter-argument, but it was a considered attack that could make others question his respectability as a grown man with a PhD.
“God, Julie, leave him alone,” Amber hissed.
I looked at her, feeling confusion rising within me.
She must have decided to just let the professor talk and let the dust settle, as Grace always liked to say. She didn't seem to realize how close this man was to the truth.
“No, I don't think it's acceptable for our honored professor to keep putting the actual subject of the seminar in the wrong light with his second degree.”
Amber's jaw dropped, which gave me a lot of encouragement, and I looked ahead at the professor, who glared at me suspiciously.
“Neurobiology is not the study of mythological thinking.”
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't dying inside, because Mr. Suspicions’ gaze buried itself in mine as if he could see straight into me.
And I regretted ever exposing this man like that as the cold spread through my hands and I felt them freeze...solid against the chair beneath my legs.
I had to calm down. And I could only do that by distracting myself, which worked best when I was dealing with scientific topics.
“Mythological stories merely serve as metaphors or allegorical representations of important human themes such as love, loss, heroism or moral dilemmas.”
You can do it Julie. Just keep talking.
“Science, on the other hand, should deal with demonstrable things because demonstrability is a fundamental principle of scientific thought. Objective knowledge based on observable facts and verifiable evidence... These are the things you should be teaching us.”
My hands became wet because the cold disappeared.
“Oh, shit...” I heard one of the human girls whisper. “She didn't just do that.”
Sometimes I found it difficult to maintain eye contact, but the gaze of the man ten meters in front of me became fixed in my subconscious, and it was as if I wanted to detect every little facial expression and memorize it in order to understand what he was feeling.
The twitch of his left eyebrow, the pressed-together lips, the jaw grinding against his taut skin.
I found it difficult to interpret what was behind that complicated look, what thoughts were circulating behind those warm green eyes.
Had I revealed something? Did he already know what I was? And did he want me dead?
The professor cleared his throat and pushed himself away from his desk.
“I'm open to suggestions for improvement, Miss Blair,” he said, finally cutting eye contact. “However, I will not stop combining my two favorite disciplines.”
This time, I pressed my lips together.
And in that moment, I knew what he must have felt.
Inner tension.
For the rest of the seminar, I avoided his gaze and tried to ignore all sorts of comments about conspiracy theories and their supposed kernels of truth, drawing lines in the margin of my notepad for each of them, so that by ten minutes before the end of the seminar, I had drawn fifty-five lines and felt like a prison inmate.
As much as I disliked it, maybe Amber was right and letting him talk was the best way. He was a human being. Maybe I was overestimating his ability to reveal us.
And suddenly I felt nervous about the vial of forgetting serum that was in my backpack.
“Since time is almost up, and since you're probably all about to rush out, I'd like to take the last five minutes to announce that I have two internship positions available at the DeLoughrey Science Center,” Professor Tiberius explained. I listened and immediately felt conflicted. “The internship starts next semester, and you would be working with me and a colleague on a genetics experiment, which – unfortunately – I can't tell you more about.” His gaze lingered on me, and the uneasy feeling in my chest intensified. “In order to qualify, I expect top grades in this semester, scientific commitment and written applications.”
The girls to my left all began to whisper enthusiastically. They were probably all going to rip each other's heads off to get one of the two positions, if it wasn't already just the one left.
I looked over at David, who was packing up his iPad.
“Let me guess, you already have a position in the DLSC?”
He looked over at me and sighed, “I won't lie to you, Quatura.”
Of course, he would get that one spot. His family owned the labs.
And so, unofficially, there was only one position left.
I pressed my lips together again and started packing my things.
Before the semester started, I would have done anything for this internship, but thinking about working with this man now sent shivers down my spine.
“Miss Blair,” My head shot up, and I looked at the front as I zipped up my backpack. Professor Tiberius looked at me with a serious expression. “Why don't you stay a minute?”
My fingers froze on the strap of my light gray leather backpack.
No. No, no, no, no, no...
Amber gave me a vicious smile as she strutted past me with Kelly, only to pause briefly beside me and whisper, “I hope he expels you from the seminar.”
