Page 97 of Beautifully Scarred Omega

“You noticed that?”

“They’re in four colors arranged in a grid pattern. Hard to miss.”

“Right. It’s—okay, so yellow is for active hypotheses, green is for confirmed findings, blue is for methodology questions, and red is for things I need to argue with Max about.”

She presses her lips together, but I can see she’s fighting another smile.

“You have an entire color dedicated to arguing with Max.”

“It comes up more than you’d think.”

“I believe you.” Her gaze drifts to the whiteboards. She studies the equations for a moment. “Is that a half-life model?”

I stare at her. “You can read that?”

“I can read the notation. I took a couple of pharmacology classes before I—” She stops. The briefest hesitation. “Before I changed direction.”

Before I changed direction. From what, exactly? And why? But I don’t ask, because I know she won’t answer.

“It’s a suppressant half-life model,” I say instead. “We’re trying to extend the half-life of our next-generation formulation without increasing hepatic load.”

“What’s the current half-life?”

“Fourteen hours. We need eighteen.”

“And the blue sticky note on the corner of the board says ‘what if we’re wrong about the binding site.’”

I turn and look. She’s right. There’s a blue sticky note in the lower corner of the whiteboard that says exactly that, in my handwriting, from a two AM session three weeks ago that I’d completely forgotten about.

“You read that from across the room?”

“You have good handwriting for a scientist. Plus, in my line of work, being perceptive can be the difference between life and death.”

She says it casually. Like living and dying are two things that are interchangeable and equally probable.

“I can imagine,” I say. “So, you took pharmacology.”

“Two years. A long time ago.”

“You still read the notation like it’s your native language.”

“Some things stick.” She looks at me, and for a second she seems almost sad, though I don’t think she realizes it. “You ask a lot of questions, Ethan.”

“Occupational hazard.”

“Of being a scientist?”

“Of being interested.”

The word lands between us. Neither of us says anything. She just holds my gaze for a moment, then looks at the whiteboard again, and I busy myself with the org chart, and the moment passes.

I walk her through the day’s plan while she drinks the coffee I made her—black, no sugar, which I know because I’ve watched her make it in the pack house kitchen.

“The research wing covers early-stage R&D, formulation development, and product design,” I say, pulling up the org chart on my monitor and angling it toward her. “Diana Quinn is in formulation, on Dr. Yoon’s team. That’s where you’ll be spending most of your time, but I’ll rotate you through the others so it looks natural.”

Sophie nods, her dark eyes tracking the org chart. “Who else is on Dr. Yoon’s team?”

“Seven researchers, two lab techs, and Dr. Yoon herself. Most of them are...” I search for the diplomatic term. “Deeply focused individuals.”