Chapter 27 · Under the Blood Gate

The syringe hit the floor and rolled under Nora's desk. I couldn't feel my legs. Kane was on his knees, hands clawed into the tile, and the sound coming out of him wasn't human.

"What did you do?" He looked up at me, and his eyes were wrong. One still that cold gray. The other pure black, no white left.

"I didn't—" My voice cracked. The injection site on my arm burned like someone had shoved a lit match under my skin. "Nora said it would transfer—"

"It split." Nora was already moving, shoving books off her desk, pulling out a cracked leather journal. Her hands shook. "God, it split. Your mother must have bound it to resist transfer. Half stayed with you. Half went to him."

Kane made that sound again, low and guttural, and the lights overhead flickered. Outside, something metal shrieked. Car alarms went off in waves, spreading out from the clinic like ripples.

"We need to move." Nora shoved the journal into my hands. "Now. They'll feel that. Every enforcer in the district just got a location ping."

I tried to take a step toward Kane and my knees buckled.