Neon Lights

17

According to protocol, he wasn't supposed to take his notes out of the lab, especially if it was for a project that had been cancelled. Instead, he was supposed to put them in his workbench drawers, never to see the light of day for one hopeful moment somewhere in the future when... if his project could ever be resumed.

But that wasn't what he wanted to do right now.

With the research notes in his hands, he walked out of the company, anger and frustration clouding his judgement on his entire way home. Even as he had to stand in the middle of annoying crowds to cross the roads, or forced to move away at people rushing past him to get to somewhere, nothing made him this angry than having his research cancelled and the words on a stupid document detailing his research was to be shut down for good burning into his eyeballs.

If Luna was here, she would console him by making him eat a tub of ice-cream she would have bought from a nearby cheap store and a glass of wine. She would have looked at his research notes and agreed that he was doing something here, even if the results weren't showing anything at the moment.

But that was part of the journey to discovering something new!

This wasn't his life project, but he put his heart and soul in everything he did.

And so this hurt just as much as it would have hurt years ago when his better research could've shut down.

It wasn't fair.

As the crowd dispersed and the sun began setting down to welcome the night, Callisto's hurried steps slowed down at a less busy street. Pulling out his phone from his jean pockets, he looked through his contacts before Draven's number came up. In his hands were the very things that this man was looking for — and if these were taken by him, then there would be nothing else left between them anymore.

Callisto would get news about his sister's whereabouts and Draven could do whatever the hell he wanted with these papers.

His thumb hovered over the familiar name. A few seconds ticked past by but the burning anger never let up to let in courage. With heart skipping a beat at the thought of hearing his voice, Callisto stopped walking to glare at the screen. The air around him grew colder, as if he had singlehandedly dropped the temperature with his foul mood and the noisiness of the city seemingly faded into the background, letting in silence.

Occasionally, there would be cats hissing at an alleyway and a few people emerging from stores, but that was about it greeting this dimly lit street. And standing there with his phone out and his emotions a mess was Callisto.

"No use to keep holding onto these," Callisto whispered.

Alia's words had pierced through him like a sharpened knife — cutting through him in ways that had him, for the first time in his life, wanted to scream at her. She had been the bane of his existence since he started working. She hated him as much as he hated her, that was the only truth and whatever she said to his face must be just her trying to gaslight him.

After all, if she truly had no part in this research shutting down, why would she be with Draven?

A sudden realisation slammed into him like a ton of bricks being thrown at him. His heart squeezed in his chest and his grip on his phone tightened until he was sure the edges of the device would've been imprinted in his palm.

"He wanted these notes," Callisto said to himself as he brought the book held in his left hand to his face. "And he knew Alia."

This shutting down his experiment business happened after he had talked to Draven like that at the hotel. This cancellation happened right after that. With his experiment now buried in the waters, the notes would be useless — wouldn't it make sense then for Draven to take them from him?