"So," the old man said quietly, his cloudy eyes resting heavily on the young man before him. "What do you want, Hide Volter?"
The suffocating pressure that had just crushed Hide to the floor was gone, but the ghost of it still lingered in his lungs. The air in the room felt thick.
The old man gestured lazily with one frail, wrinkled hand toward a small wooden chair situated across from him. "Sit down. We have much to discuss, and staring down at me is quite rude, don't you think?"
Hide remained standing for a long moment, his jaw visibly clenching. He grit his teeth so hard the muscles in his cheeks jumped. Every instinct in his enhanced body was screaming at him to do something...
But his mind, sharp and coldly calculating, held him back.
