She was my bound and I would hold on with everything I had.
“He’s a prick who works too late in the lab,” I grumbled.
James didn’t bother to look up from the laptop as he hammered on the backspace key. “People say the same thing about you.”
“Who? I want names.”
“Why? Are you going to get your boyfriend to destroy them?”
“Like I’d need Gray’s help.”
That comment made James glance up at me. “Too brilliant for that.”
“Obviously.”
“What do you plan on doing?”
“No clue.”
I sighed at the latest problem that plagued my life. Dr Emmanuel Teixeira, residing on the fifth floor of the facility, was working alongside Archer. While I spent the break worried about if I would live to see another day, that fucker had continued to work all the hours he could and gloated about results he refused to divulge until the next facility wide meeting.
Success accompanied me through life and while it ensured that my cells survived in incubations and that western blots took less time to optimise, it hadn’t culminated in finding the results that would allow us to wrap up this project.
At least it had proven useful in helping Larkin out of her situation. Gray delivered news of the divorce, along with a flurry of probing questions. He knew, but he wanted the admission from me. When I finally plucked up the courage to tell him I offered Larkin my gift, he asked why, and I lied. If Larkin still refused to tell him, then I had no right to share that part of her life. I hid behind my curiosity, and Gray lectured me about learning things with him instead of turning to whoever was available.
My lack of charm didn’t help my current cause, as I tried all day to get Teixeira to spill information. I’d lap up the tiniest crumb just so I could hit the ground running again. But the man had an iron will that rivalled mine. His lack of scientific camaraderie stung, but what put the cherry on the cake was the patronising tone he used while telling me to work harder and not to expect success so early in my career. I should have known it wouldn’t have ended well after our last meeting in his lab, where Archer and Gray had their little spat.
James checked the watch on his wrist that read eleven-fifteen and lowered the lid of his laptop. “How open are you to breaking and entering with the intent of theft?”
“As opposed to breaking and entering just for fun? Why are you asking me this question?”
There was a soft click as he shut the laptop properly. “We could raid his lab.”
“You want us to spy on him?”
“We need answers, Scott. You want the work done, I want the paper, and that guy is a colossal dickhead. We wouldn’t be the first people in scientific history to steal a few answers, and we won’t be the last.”
“Where was this a few months ago? I thought you were happy to coast.”
“I was, but things have changed.” He leaned back in his chair and looked at me. “I know you don’t believe in the Gods. Wait. Has that changed now?”
“I still don’t believe in them.”
I wasn’t about to get into the intricate details, but I trusted in a single God, and that was because he possessed half of my soul and I possessed half of his. We were the same.
James cocked his head. “But you are one of them.”
“It’s a complicated relationship,” I said, scratching my eyebrow with an index finger. “I can’t get into it.”
He raised his hands in understanding. “I’ll take your word for it. Like I said, you don’t or didn’t believe in them, but I do.”
James opened his laptop and swivelled it so I could see the screen. The desktop wallpaper was a girl with her arm slung around his shoulders, beaming at the camera. She possessed the same sloping nose and dark hair that James had but was a few years younger.
“My baby sister,” he explained. “She had cancer when she was a kid and we didn’t think she was going to make it. I prayed to every God and Goddess I could think of. If I wasn’t at school or the hospital, I was in the temple.”
I bit my tongue from responding about skilled doctors and drugs and probability and chance. All the avenues that I would have taken if someone I loved was given that diagnosis. James’ faith kept him from falling apart, and it felt wrong to impart my cynicism on him.
The Gods didn’t lie. Their gifts were something they heralded, and they were cautious about who to share them with. I thought about it more often with my success. Helping Larkin was an obvious choice. But plenty of people prayed for success. If I handed it out so easily, would people value it? Would they turn to me? The Gods balanced granting prayers with rejection, testing the faith of their followers.
