Keep it together!

****-Soo’s teeth glitter in the half-light. ‘It’s here,’ he says triumphantly, presenting Justin with a battered metal tin. Justin snaps open his briefcase, and draws out a single vial of scarlet fluid. He shakes it slowly.

‘If you thought we were going to kill you, I’m sorry to disappoint. I’m sure the act itself would be extremely satisfying, but **** is expensive and there’s always the chance, even on this sleepy little island, that someone will stumble across something incriminating. Bodies can be difficult to dispose of. Besides, I don’t hate you that much; in fact, I rather pity you. Emma’s high-maintenance, to put it mildly, and I’m quite glad to be shot of her.’

‘She deserved a thousand times better,’ you manage, feeling dizzy as the blood continues to rush to your head. Justin laughs disbelievingly.

‘Is that why you tried to humiliate me at the ball? A word of advice: you should be much more careful about who you piss off. I’ve made it a rule in life not to go around provoking strong, vicious enemies for no good reason, and I’m standing here while you’re upside down.’ Justin lowers himself down to look you in the eye, and you stare back at him. There’s cold amusement in those pale, glittering blue eyes.

‘Anyway, that I could perhaps have forgiven. I outmaneuvered you so handily that night that **** would almost be overkill – and to be honest, I’d almost forgotten what you looked like.’ Justin smiles unpleasantly. ‘But then you had to go and spoil things with my new girlfriend – and to add insult to injury, you somehow managed to convinced them both to pose naked with one another, costing me a considerable amount of money on the dark web.’

Justin pushes himself back up. ‘Not that I give two shits about the profit margin for leaks, really – that was never the point. But you’ve insulted me, more often than anyone else I can think of, and an example has to be made.’

Justin’s eyes gleam, and he taps the glass tube in his hand softly.

‘This vial contains fifty milliliters of liquid toxin. It’s a very special substance, extraordinarily difficult to manufacture, and possession of it is regulated by at least sixty different laws. Fortunately none of those apply out here, but even so, I think the United States government might disapprove of my smuggling it out of the country. What a shame they’ll never be able to prove who stole it.’

Justin keeps talking as he plunges the syringe deep into the vial, sucking up at least half the fluid. ‘I don’t know how familiar you are with lentiviruses. They’re a fascinating family, responsible for some staggeringly awful diseases, most of which you’ll never hear about outside the confines of a hospital.’ He flicks the needle experimentally. ‘But there are a few… celebrity viruses, you might say. A couple which have risen to particular prominence. And the strain in this little vessel is the most famous of them all.’