Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood

            Levi.

            Levi?

            Levi.

            He and Guy are tussling on the floor, grunting and struggling and rolling around in a vicious, violent embrace. I stare at them for several seconds, open-mouthed, paralyzed. Levi’s bigger, but Guy has a fucking gun, and when he adjusts his grip to aim at Levi I—

            Levi!

            I don’t even think about it—I run back to where the fight is happening and kick Guy in the ribs so forcefully, I feel a zing of pain travel from my toes up my spinal cord.

            I blink, and by the time my eyes are open again Levi’s pinning Guy to the floor, holding his arms behind his back. The gun has skittered several feet away. It is, in fact, very close to me.

            I look at it. Consider picking it up. Decide not to.

            Levi.

            “You okay, Bee?” He sounds winded.

            I nod. “He . . . he . . .” Guy is struggling. Demanding to be let go. Swearing. Insulting Levi, me, the world. My legs feel like Jell-O—the off-brand one, which doesn’t bounce very well. I could use a puke bucket.

            “Bee?” Levi says.

            “. . . Yeah?”

            “Can you do something for me, sweetheart?”

            Unlikely. “Yeah?”

            “I want you to take a step to your right. Another. Another.” My knee hits the edge of one of the lobby couches. Levi smiles, like he’s incredibly proud of me. “Perfect. Now sit down.”

            I do it, confused. There’s something wet on my hand. I look down: Félicette is licking my fingers. “I . . . Why?”

            “Because I’ll need to restrain Guy until security gets here. And I won’t be able to catch you when you pass out.”

            “But I . . .” My eyelids flutter closed, and . . .

            Well. You know the drill by now.





25





ORIENS-LACUNOSUM MOLECULARE INTERNEURONS: COURAGE



“NOT TO BE whiny,” I tell the nurse with a desperate-yet-grateful-yet-really-desperate smile. “I appreciate everything you’re doing, but NIH has notoriously crappy health insurance, and if I told you what a recent Ph.D. makes a year, you’d discharge me immediately.” And give me ten bucks for the cab home.

            “NASA will cover this,” Kaylee says. She’s on the bed next to me, leaning against my pillow as she shows me the wonders of TikTok. I’m clearly going to have to download this time-sinking black hole of an app.

            “Or you’ll sue them,” Rocío adds from the guest chair. She’s sprawled comfortably, a GRE prep manual on her lap and her booted feet on top of the covers. The things I let her do, just because she is, as Kaylee would put it, “my fave.”

            “I’m not going to sue NASA.”

            “What if they decide to call their next Mars rover The Marie Curie but they end up misspelling it The Mariah Carey?”

            I mull it over. “I might sue in that case.”

            Rocío gives me a pleased I know you smile. My phone buzzes.

            REIKE: OMG you’re on the NEWS

            REIKE: HERE IN NORWAY IN THIS PUB I’M AT

            REIKE: Is this what stardom feels like?

            I close my eyes, which proves to be a mistake. The image of Reike climbing over the counter of a Bergen dive bar and pointing at the TV is disturbingly vivid.

            BEE: You don’t even speak Norwegian.

            REIKE: No, but the news lady said NASA and Houston, and they put the mugshot of the Guy guy on the screen

            REIKE: lol the Guy guy I’m hilarious

            BEE: Are you drunk?

            REIKE: LISTEN MY FAVORITE SISTER ALMOST GOT KILLED LAST NIGHT I’M ALLOWED TO DROWN MY TRAUMA IN SOME NORWEGIAN LIQUOR THAT I CANNOT PRONOUNCE