Chapter 5

"Can you run?" he snapped. "Or are you too busy shaking?"

"I'm fine," I spat. I shoved his hand off and tried to stand, but a sharp, electric spike shot through my chest. I doubled over, clutching my sternum.

Damn it. The bond was humming—a warning vibration. We were pushing the distance limit.

"Stay close, Nora. If you crash, I crash. I'm not dying in a sewer because you wanted to play hero."

"I'm not playing," I hissed. I leaned into him just to stay upright. Heat radiated off his chest—ozone and expensive gunpowder. It was a hell of a contrast to the rot of the Lower Ring. "The lift is three levels up. If we hit the express shaft, we bypass security."

Elias glanced at the flickering lights. "The express shaft needs a Central badge. My credentials were flagged the second your father's voice hit the comms. I'm a ghost in the system now."

I looked at him. Really looked at him. The ruthless officer of Central Enforcement was actually locked out.

"So what? We just sit here and wait for them to cook us?"

"We find another way." His voice dropped an octave. He stepped closer, closing the gap until his breath brushed my forehead. "But you're the one with the rigs, Nora. You're the one who knows how to cheat the grid."

"I can't just 'cheat' a dead lift, Elias. It needs a jumpstart. A big one."

"Do it, then."

"It'll cost me," I whispered. "Every time I push a charge into the city's veins, it drains my nervous system. I can't do this five times in one hour."

"Do it once. Do it right. Or I'll carry you up the stairs and we'll both be dead before we hit the second floor."

I glared at him. I didn't move away. The tension between us was a live wire, sparking every time our skin brushed. I ripped the cover off the panel beside the lift, exposing the glowing copper veins of the grid.

"Hold me," I commanded.

"What?"

"The feedback will knock me out if I don't have a ground. Just... hold me. Now!"

Elias didn't hesitate. He wrapped a heavy arm around my waist and yanked me flush against him. His heart was drumming a violent rhythm against my back. I gripped the wires, closed my eyes, and screamed as I dumped my remaining neural charge into the circuit.

White light exploded. Molten lead in my veins. The bond shrieked—a psychic wail that echoed Elias's own sudden gasp of pain. We were two halves of a broken circuit, completing the loop in the most dangerous way possible.

"Nora! Stop!" he yelled.

I couldn't let go.

*Thud.*

The lift doors groaned open.

I collapsed back into him, muscles turning to jelly. Shaking. Cold. Elias caught me, his arms locking around me like iron bands. He didn't let go. He buried his face in the crook of my neck, his breathing ragged.

"You're insane," he whispered. "Completely out of your mind."

"Shut up," I breathed. "Did it work?"

He pulled back just enough to look at me. Irritation. And something that looked terrifyingly like admiration. "Yeah. It worked. Now get in before the next wave of shooters finds us."

We stepped into the lift. The small space amplified the silence. I leaned against the wall, waiting for the world to stop spinning. Elias stood guard at the door, hand on his holster, but his eyes kept drifting back to me.

"Why did he call?" I asked. "My father. He's supposed to be dead. Why now?"

Elias didn't answer. He stepped toward me, filling the narrow cabin. His thumb brushed a smudge of grease off my cheek. Light. Tender. But his eyes were hard.

"People don't come back from the dead in this city, Nora. They just get repurposed. If that was him, he's not the man you remember. He's something else. Something that wants the key your mother left you."

"I don't care what he's become," I snapped, pulling away. "He knows where Mia is. He's the only one who can get her out of that core."

"And what if the price is your life?"

"I'd pay it."

Elias let out a short, dark laugh. "Spoken like a true martyr. Too bad you're tied to me. If you go, I go. I'm not letting some ghost drag me into the grave."

"You don't even like me,"\ I countered with a bitter smile.

"I don't." He stepped even closer, pinning me between his body and the cold metal wall. He leaned in, his voice a low vibration I felt in my bones. "But I've spent my whole life hunting people like you. I'm not letting the one I actually caught slip through my fingers."

I opened my mouth to retort, but the lift jolted.

A violent shudder ripped through the floor. The lights flickered into a deep, ominous red.

"We're being intercepted," Elias barked. He shoved me behind him, weapon drawn. "Hold onto something!"

"What's happening?"

"Someone just overrode the shaft controls!"

The lift didn't stop. It plunged downward. My stomach flipped. The bond flared—a warning of proximity. Something was waiting.

*Crash.*

We slammed into the sub-level. The doors didn't slide; they were ripped apart by a remote command.

As the dust settled, I looked out. My heart stopped.

A body. Slumped against the far wall. High-collared black uniform. Central Enforcement. The silver insignia of Elias's own elite unit.

"One of mine," Elias whispered. He stepped forward, gun raised. "What the hell..."

He flipped the body over. Glassy eyes. Throat crushed by a single, precise blow. But that wasn't what made my blood run cold.

Clutched in the dead man's hand was a portable recorder. A red light was blinking.

Elias pressed play.

Static. Then a voice. A voice I'd know anywhere.

"Nora?"

It was Mia. But she wasn't screaming. She sounded hollow. Cold.

"Nora, don't come for me," Mia whispered. "He's not my father. And he's not your father either. He's—"

*Pop.*

The recording cut off.

Elias looked at me, face grim. "Who the hell is 'he'?"

Before I could answer, the recorder flared again. A new voice—deep, distorted, mocking—spoke over the line.

"Wrong floor, Officer Vane. But thank you for delivering the key right to my door."