CASSANDRA
When I got to work that day, Becky was already hard at work. She was surrounded by a stack of books, along with a long line of vials and bottles. Her eyes were so focused on her work that she hadn’t even noticed my arrival.
“Becky?” I prompted her when she didn’t say anything. “Becky, is everything alright?”
My assistant finally looked up at the sound of her name, and her dark eyes grew wide.
“Sorry, Cassy,” she said. “I didn’t even hear you.”
“It’s okay,” I assured her, and I approached her desk. “What’s going on?”
“I found something strange about the venoms,” she explained, and she gestured at a few of the vials. “The ones that we couldn’t identify? I’ve been running tests all morning. Even though they’re all very different, their chemical structures are similar. If my hy
