Chapter 21 · Execute

The vessel's eyes locked on me. My mom's eyes. Except they weren't.

"Finn Rook," she said. The voice came out flat. Mechanical. Then her hand—my mom's hand—slammed down on a glass panel beside the pod, and the whole room lit up red.

Sloane screamed.

Not the polished, camera-ready kind of scream. The kind that came from somewhere deeper than air. She lunged past me, but Kade caught her around the waist and dragged her back as the pod started to sink into the floor.

"Let me go—" Sloane twisted hard enough I heard something pop. "That's my brother, that's—"

The red lights pulsed faster. Alarms started shrieking. Nox peeled off the wall behind me and spread across my shoulders like it was trying to shield me from the whole damn room.

"What the hell does execute mean?" I shouted over the noise.

Kade didn't let go of Sloane. His face had gone white. "It means the system just triggered a match."

"A match? Now?"

"A harvest match." He bit the words out. "Loser doesn't walk out."

The pod sealed shut. The vessel—the thing wearing my mom's face—didn't blink. Didn't look away from me.