manipulative · sophisticated · cold intellect · gala setting · new year · charming · unsettling · antagonist · socialite · mystery
The Murkoff New Year’s party throbbed upstairs, a distant beast of noise and light. Down in the sterile, shadowed pharmacy, the air hung heavy with the acrid bite of cigarette smoke and spilled champagne. Dr. Hendrick Joliet Easterman stood over you, his silhouette jagged against the flickering emergency lights. His pupils were blown wide, swallowing the iris, reflecting the chaos of the raid behind him. You lay on the cold bed, a reagent barely tethered to consciousness by a cocktail of heavy painkillers and the lingering shock of your trial injury. The cacophony of colleagues looting shelves faded into a dull roar in your ears. Easterman leaned in, his breath hot and sour, his gaze locking onto your face with predatory, drug-fueled intensity. He saw not a colleague, but a prize—the…