I took my cup, drained it in the lift, and walked back into the lab. The room was empty with everyone taking their break, apart from Grayson, who was sitting on a stool with the same bored expression he’d entered with, written across his features.
In the lab's silence, I studied him. The fluorescent lighting highlighted high cheekbones and a chiselled jaw. His posture didn’t falter, causing him to appear like a marble statue. The conclusion was that Grayson had been carved from perfection with fault lines deep beneath it all — far away from the naked eye, so you’d still buy into the pretty facade.
His attention lazily shifted to me as I approached him, and I averted my gaze instantly.
“I would rather you bow when you see me,” Grayson informed me.
His voice was deep, and his tone held such authority that I nearly dropped to my knees before him.
“We don’t always get what we want,” I shot back. My irritation was still close to the surface, and I was struggling to push it away.
Grayson made an unimpressed sound, and I sucked in a breath.
“We need you to cooperate with us before you can begin integration,” I explained, cutting to the chase.
“I never agreed to integrate,” he returned coldly. “I didn’t even agree to descend into this abysmal —”
“It doesn’t sound like you have a choice.”
He scowled, transforming his stunning face into something packed with anger.
I placed my empty mug on a nearby bench, folding my arms across my chest, and observed the God in front of me once more.
Grayson was an intimidating figure, with little warmth to him. At first glance, it was easy to be taken in by his ethereal appearance. On closer inspection, beautiful bone structure morphed into a mixture of hard, cutting lines of a body that housed a vicious temper. I couldn’t help but think that his looks and temperament fit well with his responsibilities.
“Take these cuffs off me,” he ordered.
“I can’t do that.”
“Take. These. Cuffs. Off. Me,” Grayson repeated the words slowly and clearly, as if a different delivery would cause a different outcome.
“I. Can’t. Do. That,” I mimicked his tone and pace. “Holden has the key, and he won’t undo them as long as he thinks you’re a threat.”
A smile came to Grayson’s face, twisting the corners of his mouth upward with a wicked glint in his eye. It was the look that came over a predator as they stalked their prey, smug and self-satisfied with the impending kill. Goosebumps prickled the flesh of my arms, suddenly worried that we’d overestimated the power of the cuffs. We’d never tested them on a subject, only on samples of glittering gold blood with electric blue particles dispersed through it. Even their blood made me feel inferior, shining under the light.
“You need to cooperate,” I told him, taking a cautious half-step away from him. “You give us what we want, and we’ll give you some freedom.”
Grayson scoffed. “I’m not bartering with some mortal.”
“If you want to use your hands again and see the outside of this lab, that’s exactly what you’ll do,” I said, turning on my heel.
I was wasting my break talking to him. He didn’t have the upper hand and the sooner he realised that, the better. This was my lab. He needed to play by my rules.
“What is it you pray for?” Grayson called after me as I retreated.
The question caused me to stop in my tracks. When I faced him again, the curiosity softened his expression.
“I don’t pray,” I admitted brazenly.
It’d been years since I folded myself before the Gods and asked anything from them. They’d forsaken me on so many occasions, and I no longer needed to beg them for scraps. I was nothing but an afterthought, an inconsequential speck in their existence, and I refused to reciprocate their apathy with undying devotion.
“I struggle to believe in any of your abilities.”
He let out a bark of laughter. “You have Gods throughout this building. You have a God in front of you, and you struggle to believe in what we offer?”
“I’m a scientist,” I said, as if that explained everything.
I’d prayed to the Gods once, folded carefully on the floor of the temple beside my parents. As I’d grown older, I’d struggled to connect with the words and gestures, because how could anyone have faith in deities who rarely seemed to hear the prayers of those who needed them most? What right did they have to witness my struggles and decide that I wasn’t worth their time?
