Chapter 4

"Did she just say we're dead?" I gasped, lungs burning. "Elias, we're walking into a meat grinder."

"Shut up and move," he hissed.

He didn't let go. His fingers dug into my shoulder, crushing the thin fabric of my jacket. I could feel the heat radiating off him, a sharp, suffocating contrast to the freezing dampness of the station. He shoved me toward the access terminal just as the heavy thud of boots echoed from the corridor.

"We can't do it!" I snapped, digging my heels in. "If we trigger that shard, we're gone. Both of us. Is that the plan? Sacrifice us to save a city that hates us?"

Elias stopped dead. He spun me around, his face inches from mine. I could smell ozone and gun oil. His eyes were hard, scanning the perimeter, but his voice dropped to a dangerous, low vibration.

"I don't give a damn about the city's gratitude, Quinn. But your sister is still out there. You think Serah Vale is holding Mia for a chat?"

I flinched. The mention of Mia hit harder than the wall. "I know that. But if I'm dead, who protects her?"

"I will," he said. It wasn't a promise. It was a command.

He grabbed my wrist, yanking me toward the terminal. The moment our skin touched, a jolt of static electricity snapped between us. The bond flared—a searing, white-hot needle of pain that shot from the base of my skull straight down my spine.

I let out a choked scream and collapsed.

"Damn it," Elias cursed, dropping beside me. He didn't pull away. Instead, he gripped my hand tighter, his thumb pressing hard into my pulse point. "The bond is reacting to the shard. It's draining us."

I looked at the access shard in my other hand. It was glowing a sickly violet, pulsing like a dying heart. Every flicker sucked the energy out of me, leaving me hollow.

"It's a parasite," I whispered. "This thing... it's a siphon."

"Can you still use it?" Elias asked. He was already staring at the door, hand drifting back to the grip of his sidearm.

"I can try. But I need a direct link. I have to plug into the relay."

"Do it fast. We've got company."

I scrambled toward the terminal, the metal floor slick with oil. My hands shook so hard I almost dropped the shard. The second I slotted the device into the port, a massive surge of power ripped through the room. The lights overhead exploded in a shower of sparks.

Darkness swallowed us. The only thing left was the violet glow of the shard and the silhouette of Elias standing over me.

"Sshhh," he whispered, his voice right in my ear. "Listen."

I froze. A voice boomed through a megaphone from the corridor: "Nora Quinn! Give us the shard and we might let the girl live long enough to see the lights come back on!"

"Mia," I breathed.

"Don't listen," Elias said. His hand rested on the small of my back, pushing me closer to the console. The warmth of his palm through my clothes was the only thing keeping me grounded. "It's a play. They want the key, not a hostage exchange."

"How do you know?"

"Because I've spent ten years working for people like Vale," he replied. "They don't negotiate. They erase."

I turned back to the screen, fingers flying. The system was a mess of legacy code. I had to bypass three layers of encryption just to get a ping.

"Almost there," I muttered.

"Hurry up, Nora. I can hear them hitting the blast doors."

"I'm going as fast as I can!" I yelled. "The bond is lagging. It feels like I'm pulling the energy straight out of my own blood!"

Elias stepped closer. His chest pressed against my shoulder, bracing me. It was tactical—support—but the intimacy of it made my breath hitch. I could feel the steady, heavy thrum of his heart through his tactical vest.

"Take it from me," he murmured. "If the bond needs a battery, use me. I can take the drain."

"You're already exhausted, Elias. You can't—"

"Just do it!"

I closed my eyes and reached through the bond, grabbing the tether that linked our nervous systems, and yanked.

Elias let out a sharp, guttural groan. His grip on my shoulder tightened until it bruised. A rush of raw, masculine energy flooded into me—heat, strength, and a jagged edge of anger. It was like plugging into a high-voltage line.

*ACCESS GRANTED.*

"Got it!" I shouted.

But the victory lasted half a second. The terminal triggered a relay screen on the far wall. A live feed filled the ruins.

A cold, sterile room. And there, strapped to a metallic chair with neural needles pressed against her temples, was Mia. She looked small, terrified.

"Nora?" Mia's voice came through the speakers, distorted. "Nora, please! They're saying... they're saying you're the one who did this!"

I lunged toward the screen, but Elias caught me by the waist, hauling me back.

"Look at the monitors, Nora! Look at the readings!"

I looked. Beside Mia, the gauges were climbing into the red.

"She's the trigger," I whispered, horror dawning. "They're using her as the biological bridge."

"Which means," Elias said, his voice lethal, "the moment the lights go on, your sister becomes the fuse. And she'll be the first thing to burn."

I turned to him, eyes stinging. "We have to go. Now."

Elias looked at the blast doors, which were now buckling. He looked back at me, his gaze lingering on my lips for a fraction of a second before hardening.

"We're not just going to the core, Nora," he said, racking the slide of his pistol. "We're going to start a war."

Just as the blast doors shrieked and tore open, a private message flashed on the screen. Encrypted.

*"The bond is a beautiful thing, isn't it, Officer Vane? I wonder which one of you will scream louder when I flip the switch."*

Elias froze. "Who is that?"

I looked at the sender ID. It wasn't Vale. It was a name from a file my mother had hidden. A name that shouldn't exist.

"My father," I whispered.

"Your father is dead, Nora."

"Then who the hell is talking to us?"

Before he could answer, a grenade rolled through the doorway and a voice screamed through the smoke:

"Target acquired! Kill the officer, bring the girl!"