In the last installment…
THE SECOND MORNING was hotter than the first.
The sun hadn’t even cleared the trees when I stepped out of the van and felt the heat already pressing down, thick and wet as a second skin. Sweat gathered under my collar before we even reached the gate, and the gravel path crunched louder that day—less like a walk and more like a warning. Forbes didn’t say much on the way in, just a low “Morning” and a nod toward the path. He wore the same field shirt, sleeves rolled again with that infuriating precision. Clipboard under one arm.
By the time we reached the assigned grid, the cicadas were already in full voice.
Dr. Howard gave us our instructions, but Forbes kept the group together for the morning’s work. Kayla’s name wasn’t mentioned.
The body in our sector was further along in decomposition than the others. Exposed to sun, insects, scavengers. Flesh long gone. Most of the soft tissue stripped away, leaving a clean articulation of long bones and scattered ribs. The pelvis, fractured in places, jutted from the soil at an odd angle, the femurs curled slightly like the body had recoiled before it gave in to the earth.
We worked in silence at first—photographing, sketching, noting the grid. Forbes watched from the perimeter like he was cataloging something too.
After fifteen minutes, he stepped into the center of the group.
“All right,” he said, calm but firm. “Let’s walk through this as if you were receiving the remains in a field recovery. No context. No ID. No narrative. Just bone.”
He nodded toward the remains at our feet. “First step?”
Jemma was the first to speak. “Inventory the bones. Establish a biological profile. Sex, age, ancestry, stature.”
Forbes nodded once. “Good. Let’s start with ancestry.”
We clustered a little closer. The skull was mostly intact—no obvious trauma, just the slow wear of time and exposure. The maxilla was shallow. The nasal aperture narrow. Cheekbones high and forward.
“Cranial morphology suggests African ancestry,” Maddy said.
“Agreed,” Forbes replied. “What about sex?”
“The pelvis is broad,” Casey offered. “Subpubic angle’s wide. Greater sciatic notch too.”
“The mandible’s not very pronounced,” Allison added. “No strong brow ridge either.”
Forbes gave another small nod. “Female. So far, so good. Stature?”
He looked at me.
I crouched beside the femur again. “Forty-eight point three centimeters.”
“Trotter and Gleser,” I said before he could ask. “Black female. Times 2.28, plus 59.76.”
“And?” he prompted.
“Roughly five foot eleven.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Tall.”
“Tall,” I echoed.
We all looked at the skeleton again. The long bones supported the math, but something about the spread of the ribs and the angle of the spine made the proportions feel off. Not wrong—just… unexpected.
Forbes didn’t push it. “Last piece. Age.”
We were quiet.
Jemma broke the silence. “No dental record.”
“Sutures are mostly fused,” Maddy offered. “So, older than twenty-five.”
“But the pubic symphysis is still defined,” Allison said. “Doesn’t look like a geriatric case.”
“Rough range?” Forbes asked.
“Twenty-five to forty?” Casey guessed. “Maybe?”
Forbes didn’t confirm or correct. He just looked down at the bones for a long moment, then back at us.
“The most honest answer,” he said finally, “is that we don’t know.”
No one argued.
The cicadas screamed louder. Sweat slid down my back. Beside me, Forbes exhaled slowly and looked back at the remains.
“That’s the lesson,” he said. “Science gives you structure. The body gives you questions.”
I stayed crouched as the others began to shift back, their notebooks already half-closed. Something about the answer—not knowing—made me want to look harder. I slid on a fresh pair of gloves and leaned in, brushing a bit of debris from the ribcage. The fifth sternal rib ends caught the light.
I ran my fingers gently along the edge—cupped, smooth, with slight granularity.
“Late thirties,” I murmured, more to myself than anyone else. “Maybe early forties.”
When I looked up, Forbes was watching me again. He didn’t say anything.
But he didn’t need to.
The others had started to drift in, one by one—first Maddy, then Casey, their curiosity pulling them closer as they noticed I hadn’t stood up. I pointed toward the rib end again, tapping lightly with my gloved finger.
“You see that cupping? And the granularity here?” I asked, voice low but certain. “That’s not mid-twenties. There’s billowing at the margin, and the rim’s irregular—almost porous.”
Allison leaned in, squinting. “So older?”
“Mid to late forties,” I said. “Maybe fifty. But not past that. There’s still definition.”
Forbes crouched beside me, close enough I could feel the warmth coming off his arm.
“Correct,” he said quietly. Then louder, to the rest of the group: “That is how you work the margin. Observe. Interpret. Reconcile the data.”
There was a short beat of silence.
“Nice,” Casey said under his breath.
Maddy nodded, already scribbling the details in her notes. Even Jemma looked a little impressed.
I stayed crouched a second longer, the heat crawling across my back, but something about the weight of their attention felt steadier than I expected.
Forbes stood. “Alright. Document it and move to the next sector.”
After lunch, the air was worse—thicker, heavier, like it had been holding its breath all morning and finally decided to exhale. The fans in the dorm did nothing but push the heat around.
Back in our room, I sat on the edge of the bed, watching Forbes cross to the bathroom with his towel slung over one shoulder. The back of his neck was flushed, curls damp from the field. He didn’t say anything, just closed the door behind him.
The sound of the shower came a second later—sharp, then muffled. I leaned back on my palms, staring at the ceiling. I didn’t mean to imagine him behind the frosted glass. Didn’t mean to track the minutes.
When he stepped out, towel low on his hips, he looked more human than before—still composed, still unreadable, but softened around the edges. Steam followed him into the room, curling around his shoulders as he crossed to his bed.
He paused, toweling his hair roughly. “You’re unusually quiet.”
“It’s hot,” I said, which was true, but not the whole truth.
“You surprised me out there,” he added, sitting on the edge of his bed across from mine. “Most people memorize the formula. You read the body.”
I shrugged, trying to play it off. “Just followed the evidence.”
Forbes gave me a look like he didn’t believe in modesty. “You caught details most interns miss. Rib ends? That’s graduate-level intuition.”
I stood and crossed to the bathroom door, tugging my own towel from the hook. Then I hesitated.
The heat had made everything sticky—skin, breath, thought. I turned my back to him slightly, peeled off my shirt, then pushed my shorts and boxers down in one motion. My towel stayed loose in my hand.
“Maybe I’m not most interns,” I said, letting the words hang there as I reached for the bathroom door.
I could feel his gaze, steady and unreadable, settling across my spine like another layer of heat.
He didn’t answer right away. When I turned, he was still looking at me—sharp, thoughtful. Like he was running an equation in his head and hadn’t quite decided what to do with the result.
I let the door swing halfway shut before I stepped through, but I didn’t close it all the way.
Just as the steam from his shower hit me—sharp and mineral—he spoke again.
“Late forties,” he said. “No one else got that.”
His voice was low. Not praise. Not flirtation. Just fact.
I didn’t turn. Just let the water run and reached up, adjusting the temperature like I wasn’t holding my breath.
“Yeah,” I said. “I know.”
When I stepped out, the towel slung low around my hips, Forbes was standing in the doorway. Not leaning. Not fidgeting. Just there—like he had never left.
His eyes swept over me once, then met mine.
I didn’t flinch.
For a long second, neither of us spoke. The room felt smaller. Thicker. Like the steam had seeped into the drywall and decided to stay.
He cleared his throat once, but his voice was steady. “You don’t like being wrong, do you?”
“Not when I’m right,” I said.
That earned the smallest flicker of a grin, more in his eyes than his mouth. Then he stepped aside to let me pass, but his shoulder brushed mine—barely—and that was enough to set the air buzzing all over again.
I took one step forward.
Then he reached back.
His hand caught the towel at my waist—not rough, not hesitant—and pulled. I turned just in time to see the calculation in his eyes break into something else entirely.
His mouth was on mine before I could speak.
No warning. No space left. Just heat—sharp and immediate and impossible to mistake. It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t exploratory. It was certain.
His hand slid to the back of my neck, anchoring me there, and I kissed him back like I’d been holding it in for days.
Maybe I had.
His body was all heat and pressure, skin still damp from the shower, chest firm against mine. The towel between us slipped, forgotten, gravity doing the work I couldn’t bring myself to finish. His fingers flexed at the nape of my neck, then traced down—slow, deliberate—until they pressed at my lower back and held me there.
I opened under him, dizzy with the suddenness, the certainty. His mouth didn’t ask. It took. And I let it.
He turned us without breaking contact, backing me toward the bed in a blur of breath and tension and the smallest growl of frustration when we finally broke apart to breathe.
I barely managed a whisper. “Are we really—”
“Yes,” he said, before I could finish. His forehead rested against mine. “Don’t ask unless you want me to stop.”
I didn’t answer.
Because I didn’t want him to.
His mouth found mine again—slower this time, exploratory, but no less sure. He kissed like he studied: with focus, with control, like he was reading something just beneath the surface and waiting to see if it would flinch.
I didn’t.
He pushed me down onto the bed, not forceful, just inevitable. The towel slipped off completely as I sank into the mattress. Forbes followed, knee on the edge, hand braced beside my head, his eyes dark and steady. He kissed along my jaw, down my neck, and I arched into him like I’d been waiting for this—because I had.
What happens next isn’t just physical—it’s the moment the balance of power shifts and neither of them can pretend this is still about restraint. Lines blur, control fractures, and what starts as inevitability turns into something neither of them is ready to name. If you want to see how far they cross—and what it costs—this is where you keep reading.
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