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.

other end made his expression darken and his voice grow even

We're on our way now,

to 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

have

screen just went black suddenly. When we rebooted, we realized most of the backup was gone too, less than thirty

and maintain computer performance,

end of the month, and they had

data is backed up twice for

really just an

thought it was too

...

eight sharp, everyone in the lab

were tech specialists who had signed confidentiality agreements to work exclusively for Kingswell University's

computer glitch was discovered, Stoddard had immediately

was dispatched without

half an hour,

asked, "What's

She booted up the computer to enter data, and it just went