Page 11 of The Bonding Games: Part 2

“Hm.”

Leaving him to piss himself, I make my way into the hallway that has been presented to me, footsteps increasing in speed as I recall that I am on a time crunch.

At the end of the hall, there is another door, this one’s panel requiring a fingerprint. Narrowing my eyes, I wonder if he would be so arrogant—

The taalk slides away at the press of my thumb.

Yes. Father would.

And he told me my intelligence was lacking as of late.

Almost every individual in the room ceases all movement when I enter the first Avri lab. Terror permeates the air in record time, and I do experience a small slither of bliss at their reactions. They are always the same, and yet I note with increased delight that the fear is repeatedly more overpowering when I am not with my father. It is as though they think he is able to control me, and I almost snort.

Before realising that is no longer an appropriate reaction. Before I remember he can and is controlling me now that he has leverage over me.

A snarl escapes me, and the frightened stares zoned in on my every twitch widen further. “Tell me where the cameras are made for the Games,” I instruct sharply. “I cannot recall.” More like I have never been shown, but I would like to see them argue against me.

My eyes skip over the multicoloured transparent clusters of energy contained in large see-through tubes throughout the room as I stare every staff member down, impatience converting to ire when no one obeys in a snap. “Is everyone so eager to meet my Avri today?” Marching forwards, I snatch up the nearest worker, finding my gloved fist full of a handful of a red-adorned white lab coat, and I drag the Exot after me as I move through the blinding-white space. She lets out a tiny petrified noise that I pay no mind to, legs carrying me determinedly down the hallway which leads to many other labs, a door to both my left and right every handful of feet. “It is none of these. Where is it?”

“I-I—”

“Stop stuttering and tell me before I remove your useless tongue. I am not in the mood for patience today.”

“I’m not supposed to go in that one!” she blurts.

“Which one?” I grind out.

“The—”

“Daughter.”

Rigidness captures each limb.

The almond-skinned woman rushes from my grasp in an instant, moving closer to my father as if he is any safer of an option.

Idiots. All of them.

Taking my time turning to face my sperm donor, I reply evenly, “Father.”

“I see your curiosity got the best of you.” His smile is designed to look warm for our spectator, and I roll my eyes behind my visor, relishing in the tightening of his fabricated expression when he senses my burning desire to strangulate him.

“Very much so,” I hum absently.

His left eye twitches before he flashes too-straight teeth at the woman beside him. “You may go. Thank you for your help. I will take it from here.”

With heated cheeks that have my nose crinkling in disgust, her lips curve gently before she scurries away.

Father’s eyes concerningly do not harden the moment she rounds the corner at the end of the hallway.

“The meeting finished early?” I ask tonelessly, folding my arms over my chest in a casual manner.

“Yes,” he replies too calmly as he moves over, and I find myself falling into step beside him as he walks between the purest-white walls. I disappointingly cannot do anything other than that when we do not have complete privacy. This is a show I have been starring in for years to present a united front to the rest of the Techtis Council.

Following him through the last door on the left, we move into the lab dedicated to armoury sticks after a scan of my father’s thumb. I have been in here before, but only ever with him; I have never had any use for these rooms, and I know nothing in here could help me with the situation in my eye. Despite being so self-assured that he has had my fingerprint recorded on the biometric scanners in here, Father would not be so careless as to leave the remaining pixels in his Avri cluster that are not in his person or belongings somewhere so obvious.

I fight to keep my irritation in as he moves further into the room, the Evots, Exots, and Neutrals working in here embarrassingly falling for his constructed charming outward appearance as they share warm looks and friendly waves. Would I even find any brain cells other than my own if I were handed a device to scan over the heads in the room?

Holograms float mid-air, and I roam my eyes over them, taking in the displayed light crimson Avri dagger in one and the throwing star in another as my father creates tedious conversation with a scientist working on Avri belonging to a boy whose name I catch on the screen before him is Tam Fletchings. Upon a single glance, it is evident he is a new Evot; enabled by the microchips all Avri scientists have in the backs of their necks that can direct every cluster, aided by computer coding, the eleven-year-old’s luminous green pixels make a faint flickering sound as half of them pile into one ebony baton lying on the polished white desktop, the other half moving into the one on the right.