Arsenic for the Soul Read Free Page A

sense of that?” He chuckled. “Like I said, this isn’t my
forte. We’re a little short on nursing staff today so I volunteered
to step up.”
    “ That’s thoughtful of
you.”
    Milo shrugged.
    “ Plenty of staff helped me
out when I was a young kid fresh out of the university. I’m just
trying to return the favor. Besides, it gets a bit too
claustrophobic for my liking in the blood lab. Once in a while I
just need to come up for air and chat with someone.”
    He motioned for her to sit.
    “ Do you or your family have
a history of vaccine reactions?”
    “ No.”
    “ Are you pregnant?”
Vivian’s cheeks burned like coals under his intense
eyes.
    “ Definitely
not.”
    Milo laughed and the melody rolled off
Vivian like an ocean wave.
    “ Well, let’s get started
then.” A substance drained into the syringe one drop at time and
Vivian followed every detail in silent horror.
    The needle loomed as large
as a spear in her mind’s eye. She always dreaded needles, but an
experience last year only magnified that irrational fear. She had
every right to her phobia of needles after her unfortunate
rendezvous with the serial killer Viktor
Rezník . After all, how could she forget
waking up in his basement of torture?
    Within minutes of coming to her senses
in restraints, she had come face-to-face with the man responsible
for the serial murders in Prague.
    With syringe in hand, he shot her
veins full of a drug called Syllax. That needle exposed her to
trials and tribulations that no sane mind should ever
endure.
    That moment changed her life in
countless ways. Syllax was an experimental drug designed to help
patients overcome repressed trauma. However, it did anything but
help them cope. It filled Vivian’s head with post-traumatic
hallucinations for weeks on end.
    Almost a year passed since that ordeal
and the events preceding it. Each time she reflected on the
experience, she asked herself the same question: What led to such a
bizarre and almost fatal encounter?
    Every downfall seemed to stem from the
moment she ran away from home. If only her father never discovered
the bundle of cash in her jacket and learned about her stripping
pastime to finance her college education.
    Her father wasn’t disappointed in
her—he almost collapsed of a stroke at the dinner table. Half of
Vivian’s possessions were thrown on the lawn by the time her mother
calmed him down. Of course, the rites of punishment didn’t end
there. He wanted to transfer Vivian to a sex therapy program called
the Magdalene Midnight Mission.
    Supposedly, it would mend her woefully
flawed character.
    The idea of living as a prisoner for
something so insignificant proved too much to bear.
    Vivian opted to live on the streets
rather than share a room with other wayward girls. Life on the
streets almost seemed like a paradise compared to life in a cage.
Alas, anything but paradise waited. Her descent into depravity
accelerated as she resigned herself to prostitution as the only
means to survive.
    Of course, she differed from the
typical caterers by specializing in the taboo realm of pain and
pleasure. Within weeks, her cruel methods earned her the moniker
“Red Widow.”
    In many ways, she resembled the brutal
red widow with her violent demeanor toward males. Vivian also
plummeted into the underworld of recreational drugs.
    Sometimes after serving clients, the
only solace she could find was at the tip of a psychotropic-laced
needle. With the drug scene freshly exploding onto the streets of
Prague, Vivian found herself drifting ever more into listless daze
of pleasure, guilt, and rage.
    On one such unforgettable night, she
transferred that rage onto one of her clients. Vivian would never
forget his bizarre request: to be brought to the brink of
death.
    After much hesitation, she greedily
obliged. Blinded by the anger she felt for feeling like a failure,
an object, and a disappointment in her father’s eyes, she almost
murdered her client.
    Before she could