Mated to the Beast of the Wasteland novel Chapter 173

Chapter 173 Golden Silk

Chapter 173 Golden Silk

“There might be one more person who can.”

+20 Free Coms

Gillian closed her hand over Clara’s. “Clara, we’re not at the end of the rope yet. There’s always/another way.”

Elara held the rank of level 7 cleric, and her control over psionics far outstripped Gillian’s own, which meant she might just be able to pull this off.

“Gillian, is there really another way? Honestly, I’d already let it go. I just couldn’t walk away without an answer that would let me put it to rest.”

“Clara, hang in there. I promise I’ll bring her to you as soon as I can. Trust me.”

Gillian refused to let this chance slip away, and she planned to call Elara over first thing in the morning.

Clara forced a thin smile. If even a level 3 cleric couldn’t manage it, what hope did anyone else have?

Still, she wasn’t about to throw Gillian’s offer back in her face.

Word had gotten around that Elara was back in town, and Clara’s head snapped up at the mention. “You’re not talking about Ms. Locke, are you?”

“Yep. Just between us, her cleric rank actually outranks mine.”

Clara could have cried. To save her experiment, Gillian was about to go begging her own romantic rival?

“But Gillian, isn’t Ms. Locke…”

Right then, footsteps echoed down the hallway. Two sets, by the sound of them.

The pair had clearly come hunting for Clara. They rapped sharply on the metal door, and the heavy knocks cut the conversation off.

“Clara, you in there?” The voice rang out bright and young, full of a teenage boy’s clear edge.

Clara was in no mood. Her reply came out flat and cold. “What do you want?”

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“Clara, with that attitude, no wonder nobody’s chasing you!”

The other male threw out the trash talk with a smirk in his voice. Clara snorted in disgust. “None of your damn business. Whether anyone chases me or not has nothing to do with either of you. Quit poking your noses into my life. Get lost!”

Even Gillian’s mood soured. Friends could joke around, sure, but this was way past the line.

“We were just worried you’d dig yourself into a hole. You skipped lunch. So what if your project tanks? Females end up married and popping out kids sooner or later anyway.”

Every line out of his mouth landed worse than the last, and even Gillian’s expression turned to ice.

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11:27 Wed, Jun 3

Chapter 173 Golden Silk

Clara turned her head away and refused to engage with either voice through the door.

+20 Free Coms

“Don’t waste your breath on them, Gillian. They’re first-years at the Academy. They don’t know a thing.”

Gillian had always considered herself a pushover, but Clara just topped her by a mile.

“They’ll bark a couple of times, I’ll ignore them, and they’ll go away.”

Gillian watched Clara’s back. “Does George know you’re getting harassed like this?”

“Honestly, it’s not really their fault, Gillian. Everyone in my cohort cleared out and took jobs. I’m the only one still holding on. If this spore hadn’t kept hanging in there, giving me a reason to push through, I’d have packed up and walked away a long time ago.”

Clara’s hands dropped limply to her sides.

“So I’m asking. Do George and Vivienne even know you’re stuck here taking this kind of crap?”

Clara flinched at the steel in Gillian’s voice and shook her head. “My dad would yank me out and put me on logistics duty tomorrow if he could. My mom is right there with him. If I said one word about this, the spore would hit the trash before sundown.”

So Clara had been taking nonstop grief over a single spore she couldn’t even prove was alive.

“Are they crushing on you, or being little jerks on purpose?”

Clara genuinely didn’t know, and felt that opening up now would come across like tattling to Gillian.

“You, my friend, are an open book when you’ve got nothing to hide. And when you go dense, you go dense enough for three.”

“The thing is, I haven’t got results. I’ve got nothing to show. If I don’t leave, the new students won’t have a lab. The budget and equipment Black Rick approved are all earmarked, one slot per project. People have been calling me a freeloader for refusing to bail. Today was supposed to be my Hail Mary. Still came up empty.”

“So one of those clowns outside doesn’t have a lab, and that’s why he’s been making your life hell every day?”

It all clicked. Gillian gave Clara’s shoulder a firm clap. “Who says you don’t have data? Your shaggy mane isn’t dead, is it? The experiment isn’t over, so the lab isn’t going anywhere. Clara, you’ve done nothing wrong.”

Today, Gillian would be Clara’s backbone. Even setting aside her debt to George and Vivienne, a female this talented deserved someone in her corner.

A sharp screech of metal cut through the room.

Clara’s lab door had been thrown wide open.

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