“Excuse me… who are you?” I asked, stepping forward with my notebook in hand before setting it down.

He didn’t seem to hear me or even acknowledge my presence. His focus remained on my notes, though he glanced briefly at Pray, who was asleep, resting. But that meant—

“Dr. Collins?” the older man finally spoke, addressing me directly.

“Yeah, that’s me,” I replied, glancing at Pray’s schedule and noticing some tasks had already been marked as completed.

“As you can see,” he finally lifted his gaze and stood up straight. “Pray has already had his sedative that you neglected to give to him.”

“I’m sorry, what? I missed it by fifteen minutes,” I replied, baffled. Who does this guy think he is? He was worse than Dr. Graves.

“I didn’t stutter,” he said flatly. “You missed his injection by fifteen minutes. And because of that, he’s late for bed. If you can’t keep to the schedule, you’re not fit to handle him.”

“First of all, I was gathering information,” I retorted, refusing to back down. “And secondly, is it really that necessary to be so strict? It’s only fifteen minutes.” Who did this guy think he was, barging into my lab like he owned the place?

“For all I know, you could’ve delayed it by a day,” he replied with a dismissive scoff. “You don’t seem very reliable already, Dr. Collins. Maybe you should just go home and not come back.” He lifted his gaze, meeting mine with a look of cold disapproval.

“And who the hell—"

“You don’t belong here,” he interrupted, his tone calm yet chilling. “I have more knowledge and experience with Pray than anyone else in this facility. If you can’t even show up on time for his scheduled needs, then you don’t deserve to be in charge of him.” His words cut like a blade, sharp and precise, digging into my perceived faults. But I wasn’t about to let this pompous man disrespect me.

“Well…” I took a steadying breath, doing my best to control my anger. “If you were meant to be in charge of Pray, you would be.” I forced a sarcastic smile. “Since you aren’t, I see no reason to entertain your lectures on hypotheticals.” Moving past him, I began sorting through the mess he’d made of my notes. I could feel his glare drilling into my back, but I refused to back down. This was my lab, and I was the lead researcher over Subject 003. No one, especially not this stranger, was going to tell me what to do.

As I set down my notes from my conversation with Dr. Zelman, the man reached out and snatched them before I could react. 

“You could just ask politely,” I snapped.

“There’s no such thing as polite here,” he murmured, ignoring me as he studied my notes. I just wanted him gone. My frustration mounted as his green eyes scanned the pages with a critical intensity, like a teacher grading a student’s work. Without a word, he pulled out a highlighter and began marking up my sentences, his actions dripping with condescension.

“Yes, go ahead, add to the notes,” I whispered through clenched teeth, seething. The worst part was that I felt helpless to do anything. If I yanked the notes away, it could turn into a physical fight, and with Pray asleep nearby, I’d rather not risk waking him—especially after what he did the other day. My gaze drifted to his glass containment. He was some distance away, and strangely, seeing him so peaceful softened my features. The sleeping beast looked almost… harmless.

“You’ve been recording mating behaviors?” The rude stranger finally spoke, eyes still darting between my notes and his own, comparing them closely.

“Yes. And just who are you, anyway?” I asked, my annoyance clear in my tone.

“Dr. Caldwell,” he replied with a grimace, his gaze settling on me. “You would do well to remember it.” He continued scanning my notes with a skeptical frown, as if weighing every detail against his own records. “I’m also evaluating the accuracy of your observations.”

“It happened,” I snapped, frustration seeping into my voice. “What else do you expect? That I just made it up?”

“Yes,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “It’s not like you’re the first person to make up fibs for a few brownie points.”

I couldn’t stand his presence anymore. Doing my best to ignore him, I turned away, focusing on the tasks at hand. As I looked around, I noticed the samples I’d gathered were already neatly stacked and documented. The specimen notes were flawless. I moved to the fridge and saw all the labels had been rewritten in greater detail, even the filing cabinets relabeled. I let out an irritated grunt. This man, Dr. Caldwell, was like a virus, leaving his mark on everything. At this point, it seemed like he wanted my job more than whatever he was actually supposed to be working on. I’d have given anything to talk to Zelman again, just to avoid this insufferable bastard. But I had to focus—my priority was studying Pray, not worrying about this loon’s interference.

I settled back into my desk, trying to ignore the persistent presence buzzing around me like a fly I couldn’t swat away. Caldwell muttered criticisms under his breath with every movement, an irritating hum of disapproval that clung to the air. Then I noticed Pray was awake; his nap hadn’t lasted long. I shuddered slightly, seeing those red eyes fixed on me as he moved about his containment cell. If only he didn’t stare at me, but then again, Zelman had said this fixation could be to my advantage.

“Huh…?” Caldwell’s audible reaction pulled me from my thoughts. I looked over and saw him staring at Pray, confusion softening his usually shrewd expression, as if he was staring at a foreign object he couldn’t quite understand. “I guess your notes were right about his fixation,” he remarked, glancing from Pray to me.

Finally, someone here acknowledged I was right—even if it had to be him. “So you see, I wasn’t lying after all,” I replied, letting my satisfaction show.

“It’s a strange phenomenon for him, yes,” Caldwell murmured, his gaze drifting back to Pray. “But what does it mean…?”

The question struck me. What did it mean? I hadn’t truly faced that question until now. Sure, he seemed fixated on the mating aspect, but something felt deeper than that. To break a pattern of lifelong indifference just for a mate? It had to mean more, didn’t it? There was something in the way he looked at me—something his cold, expressionless face wouldn’t reveal.

Without warning, the white haired devil moved to the control pad outside the glass containment. He leaned into the microphone, his tone formal as he spoke through the communicator.

“Subject 003, what is your motivation for the sudden change in behavior towards researcher Dr. Collins?”

I held my breath, both intrigued and apprehensive, waiting to see how Pray would respond.

This was something I wanted to know as well. I took a cautious step closer, though a chill crept up my spine. Pray was silent, his eyes shifting just slightly to Caldwell before snapping back to me, barely acknowledging the question. I stopped a few feet from the stairs of the glass unit. Pray’s gaze grew more intense, his body visibly tensing as his hands pressed firmly against the glass. There was no emotion in his face, but a readiness, like an animal prepared to pounce.

Caldwell’s cold gaze on Pray then flickering back to me with interest. “Fascinating…” he said in a whisper watching the interaction. 

I hesitated, taking a small step, and noticed Pray mirroring me. He moved just as I did, gliding slightly to the left, then right. Silence fell between us all, broken only by the soft click of my heels. Dr. Zelman was right—Pray was mirroring my movements, perfectly in sync.

“Get closer, Collins,” Caldwell urged, his voice holding a dangerous edge of excitement.

A surge of unease tightened my throat. I met Caldwell’s intense green eyes, feeling the cold weight of his scrutiny. He studied us both as if we were the lab rats in his experiment, dissecting every motion, every breath. “I’m not certain about that,” I replied, fighting to keep my voice steady. “I don’t want to provoke him.”

“Nonsense, you’re safe; the glass won’t break.” His lips curled in a cunning smile as he leaned closer, whispering as though sharing a secret. “Besides, I want to see these… mating behaviors you spoke of.” His intentions were clear—curiosity mingled with suspicion. It was unsettling, watching him treat Pray’s fixation as nothing more than a phenomenon to analyze, another opportunity for knowledge. The criticisms he’d thrown at me earlier still lingered, but now I saw Caldwell’s true priority: his relentless pursuit of insight, regardless of the risk.

Soft, hesitant steps brought me to the edge of the glass, where I paused, unwilling to reach out and touch its cold, unfeeling surface. But Pray grew alert, his red eyes sharpening, nostrils flaring as I closed the distance. A thrill of dread rippled through me as I realized he was taking in my scent through the glass’s tiny perforations, just like before.

The sight of his reaction sent a shiver down my spine. He was closer to me than I’d realized.

“Pray…” I murmured his name in a soft, almost intimate tone, as if hoping I could unravel his secrets just by looking at him. My gaze traced over his face, so eerily human in form. If not for those eyes. Those red infernos—intense, piercing—like staring into the abyss.

 And the abyss…looked back at me.