Love Burned, She Rose Unscathed

"Anne... God, how I miss you... Can't you come back?" Murray murmured.

The only thing that answered him was the pitch-black living room and the relentless, howling cold wind outside the window.

The next morning, Roseanne was up with the birds. She showered, cooked breakfast, got ready, and prepared to head out to the lab.

As she was about to close the door, she noticed a paper bag hanging on the doorknob. Inside, there was a tube of the allergy nasal cream she always used. She glanced around. Who could have left this?

Suddenly, her eyes landed on the door across the hall. Roseanne looked at the nasal cream and then examined the paper bag more closely.

Just as she was about to knock on the door to ask if it was Owen who'd left it, the door abruptly swung open.

Owen stepped out, his face stern. Upon seeing her, he paused.

Sensing something was off, Roseanne asked, "Is something wrong?"

Owen replied, "Let's talk on the way to the lab."

"Okay," Roseanne said, her tone serious, momentarily forgetting about the nasal cream.

On the way, Owen received a phone call.

was said on the other end made his expression darken and his voice grow even more

our

ask, Owen took the lead and said, "There's been a glitch with the lab's computers. All of this week's experimental data has been wiped. We haven't managed to recover it yet, and the worst-case scenario is—" He paused for a

"Don't we have

most of the backup was gone too, less than thirty

maintain computer performance, the lab's data is

Monday was the end of the month, and they had just performed a

is backed up twice for safety. But...

it really just an

thought it was too

...

lab had arrived,

signed confidentiality agreements to work exclusively for Kingswell

the computer glitch was discovered, Stoddard

was dispatched

half an hour, there

asked, "What's going

call from Liz. She booted up the computer to enter data, and it