My Hockey Alpha novel Chapter 18

Nina

Without removing my lab coat and goggles, I ran from the laboratory and down the hall. I didn’t know where I was going or what I was doing, but I had to tell someone.

As I ran down the hall, I nearly ran straight into none other than Jessica. She had her hair up in a bun and a stack of textbooks in her arms, which she dropped when I almost ran into her.

“Geez!” she said, clutching her chest with one hand as she looked at me. “What the hell happened? You look like a crazed murderer.”

I caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection of a classroom window. Jessica was right; my lab coat had blood on it from opening up the cadaver, and my goggles only emphasized my wide eyes. But that wasn’t important right now.

“Follow me,” I said. “I have to show you something.”

We returned to the lab, Jessica grumbling behind me about how gross cadavers were as we entered.

“There,” I said, pointing at the table with my cadaver on it. “Look.”

She walked over, clutching her books to her chest, and peered at the body with a scowl on her face. “What is it?” she asked, sounding confused.

I stomped over to show her the body, but the chest was completely healed and the fangs were no longer there. How?

“Someone switched the body,” I said, whirling around to see if someone had moved my cadaver elsewhere. Jessica only looked on in confusion.

“Um… Nina, are you alright?” she said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Are you overly tired or something?”

I shrugged her hand off and shook my head. “No,” I replied. “I’m fine. I swear my cadaver’s heart was massive… twice the size of a normal human’s. And I checked his teeth. He had fangs. Like a wolf.”

Jessica furrowed her brow and looked at me with concern drawn across her face. “Nina, that’s ridiculous,” she said. “I think maybe you should go home and get some rest.”

“I know what I saw!” I snapped. My hands were shaking and my eyes began to fill with tears. “That cadaver was no ordinary human, and someone switched it.”

Jessica didn’t say anything.

“I know you think I’m crazy,” I said, pulling off my goggles and my lab coat and putting them away in my locker. “But I swear. I saw something that was not… human.”

“I believe you,” Jessica said slowly. I could tell that she was lying, but I didn’t say anything. “Let’s just go home and you can rest, then we can talk about what you saw.”

I shook my head and grabbed my bag out of my locker. “No,” I replied. “I’m talking to the dean. Right now.”

Before Jessica had a chance to stop me, I stormed out of the lab and marched straight to the dean’s office.

The dean was sitting at her computer when I unceremoniously entered without knocking. When she looked up at me with a stern expression on her face, I realized how rude I was being and suddenly felt embarrassed.

“Good afternoon, Miss Nina Harper,” the dean said, taking off her glasses and clasping her fingers together with her elbows on the desk. “Can I help you?”

“I… uh…” I stammered.

“If you haven’t got anything to say, kindly leave my office,” the dean said.

“I saw something,” I blurted out, “in my anatomy lab. My cadaver… it wasn’t human.”

The dean raised an eyebrow. “Oh?” she said. “Do explain.”

“It had an extremely enlarged heart, and… fangs. Like an animal… a… a wolf.” Saying it out loud to the dean made me cringe at how insane I sounded.

“Hmm…” she put her glasses back on and looked down her nose at me. “Why come to me, and not your professor?”

I swallowed, unsure of how to respond. Truthfully, I hadn’t thought ahead this far. For some reason, my immediate instinct was to tell the dean.

When the professor saw that I wasn’t responding, she nodded and pulled out a notepad. She jotted something down on it and ripped the paper off, handing it to me. It had a man’s name and phone number on it.

“I’m sure you’re stressed,” she said. “Please make an appointment with Edward Williams. He’s an excellent therapist.”

“I don’t need thera-”