33 Outside the Mansion

She paced the width of the white hospital floor. It was quiet in this area, the VIP Section of the building. They charged extra, but Tasha decided to take that money from the patient's account after he recovered.

She finally sat down on a chair when her legs started to ache. Running fingers through her messed up curly hair, she thought of all the things that had happened last night.

She had ran to the venue of the accident the moment she saw the familiar face on her phone. And she didn't have much trouble getting there because she had had just left the place that night. She remembered standing frozen for a while, simply staring at his body being carried on a stretcher into the ambulance. She had looked up at the others around them.

They were taking pictures, of course. Dazed, she got inside the ambulance too, saying she was a colleague. His face looked very different from the last time she had seen it, which had been less than an hour ago. 

"Who killed you, Haffar?" she asked him in her mind but then caught herself, "No…No, you're not dead yet. You still have to answer my questions. You're our only lead." 

She had stayed at the hospital all throughout the night and arranged the necessary fees for the surgery all on her own. Her phone rang thrice during that time. It had been her sister, it was only morning where she was. But Tasha didn't pick up.

It was about 1 AM here when her sister had called.

Tasha rubbed her eyes now and remembered that she didn't get any sleep. She decided to take one now and leaned back into the chair. Before she could actually relax, the operation theatre door swung open and a few doctors came out.

Tasha opened her eyes and stood up, straightening her hair down, "How is he, doctor? Is it critical?" she asked, trying to glance inside.

The doctor removed his mask and tucked it in his pocket, "You're the patient's…?"

"Colleague. We work for the same company. Different departments."

The doctor nodded, "We tried our best, but the injuries were inflicted with calculation. I'm sorry, we were unable to save him."

"What? What do you mean?"

The doctor didn't say anything and Tasha finally got the point. Haffar was gone. That wasn't a problem to her, really. Her lead was gone! She immediately felt guilt for thinking that way, though. She looked up at the doctor, "Have you informed the family yet?"

He shook his head, "You're the first person who knows. Do you know his family personally?"

Tasha gave the doctor the phone number of their receptionist who would give them access to his personal information. The nurse by his side gladly took it and walked away.

When they were alone, the doctor cleared his throat, "Um…miss. I'd like to ask you some questions regarding his death."

"Yes. Carry on."

He walked to the side and opened the door to his personal office, "Privately, if you may?"

Tasha frowned, but entered the room anyway and sat on the chair in front of the desk. Her eyes threatened to droop over her eyes, but the doctor's hesitant movements somehow kept her awake. 'What's he hiding?' she asked herself. 

"I'll get right to the point," he declared, sitting on the bigger chair, "We conducted some tests and thought he had been injured due to a car accident. The driver even admitted to hitting him. But then we went on with a body test and found a strange fluid in his lungs."

"He had a disease," Tasha confirmed.

"No. It wasn't because of a disease. The fluid was recent and we found toxins in the blood too, after conducting further tests. A scary compound named delta atracotoxin," he explained but Tasha raised an eyebrow.

"I don't understand medical terms, sorry. Could you explain that again?"

He sighed, "The reason for his demise wasn't the car accident. That only gave him minor concussions. The real reason was this poisonous substance."

"He was poisoned? Which poison?" Tasha asked. She was already deciding to track down all purchases of all the domestic poisons you could get. That would hopefully lead to another person who had another lead. But her thought process was cut short at the doctor's words.

"The toxin is only found in funnel web spiders. The deadliest spiders on the planet. I believe he died quickly, but painfully. Whoever did this had planned it. The poison, once in the system, will kill within 15 minutes. And the nearest hospital from that area took at least 20 minutes by ambulance. It was a sure kill."

Tasha stood up when she heard that and took her bag. 

"Hey, where are you going?" the doctor yelled when he saw her leaving.

Tasha turned back and looked at him, "I…can't be concerned with this doctor. You can inform his family directly but whatever you do…don't mention the spiders."

He tucked his hands into his pockets, "Why not?"

She glanced outside the office door to see if anyone was watching. The place was empty, but who knew. "Because…then they'll kill you too."

She walked out of the hospital as fast as she could, scared, frightened and shocked all at the same time.

She just wanted to go back home and never step out. All this was connected. Haffar had said that the 'Spiders' were watching, whatever they were. The very next moment –not even a day had passed— he was murdered.

She hadn't stressed about the Spiders too much, but now, she understood. The more involved she got in this, the more danger her life was in. She opened the door to her house and locked it tight. She made sure the windows were locked too and went to sleep.

She left the curtains open and let the sunlight come in.

It would be too scary for her to sleep in the dark from now on.

..... 

The moment Lucas stepped out of the Locked Room, the lights of one office flickered on. Everyone's heads turned to look in that direction in surprise. Then another light, and another. Slowly, the whole building was revived again and the silence was replaced by whirring of the building again.

Everyone murmured in surprise and retreated to their offices to complete their lost work. The electrician didn't leave so soon, though. He narrowed his eyes at Lucas who just met the stare and grinned innocently.

The electrician looked at him one last time before descending down the stairs to his cabinet.

Lucas let out a breath that had been holding unconsciously. "Phew…that was close." 

He looked down and felt for the card in his pocket and felt it inside. 'Was this the thing that drained the energy of the entire building? When I closed it, the electricity returned,' he wondered. Nevertheless happy that he might have stirred up some kind of trouble, he returned to his cubicle when the security came back. Mischief ran in the family. Lucas spent the next few hours helping the workers who had lost their work.

By the time he had finished recovering everyone's data and fixing a couple of jammed printers, it was lunch time.

He looked over to the HR department to look for the replacement and smiled when he saw her talking to another employee. His smile fell soon, though.

The employee was a guy. 

Lucas tilted his head and cracked the bones in his neck before striding towards the HR department, 'You're mine!' he screamed inside his head and felt guilty for fixing the time at 11 PM. They could have just gone for lunch together right now. That's also when he realised that he didn't know her name.

Lucas opened the door to the HR room and stood in front of the pretty girl, "Hey, anyone here giving you trouble?" Lucas asked, without looking back and only at her.

She gasped in surprise when she saw Lucas suddenly rush in. She smiled and blushed before waving her hand, "No, no, I'm fine. Thanks for asking."

He heard a throat clear behind him and looked back to see a tall, buff guy with a brown ponytail and an ear piercing. Lucas folded his hands and frowned at the guy who had been talking to the pretty employee, "And who might you be? Are you trying to hit on her?" Lucas scoffed, "Please have some ethics. This is a workplace."

The other man coughed at that and glanced at the woman, "Rose, you know this dude?"

She smiled, "Yes, honey, he is also a rookie like me."

"Huh?" Lucas looked back at Rose and then at the tall guy, "Honey?"

The man stepped closer to him and flexed his arms, "I'm her boyfriend, you jerk."