Chapter 29 · Midnight's a Lie

Mara locked the clinic door with her brother asleep two floors down and Kade bleeding into her secondary chair.

The screens outside were still looping Silas's broadcast. Her face. Kade's face. The word TERRORIST in six languages and a dawn execution timestamp that didn't bother lying about a trial.

She pulled up the scan of Kade's shoulder on her old tablet. The tracker sat just under his collarbone, smaller than her thumbnail, wrapped around a nerve cluster like it was holding hands.

"You're looking at it wrong," Kade said.

Mara didn't look up. "I'm looking at the part that'll kill you if I slip."

"Then don't slip."

She set the tablet down hard enough to crack the corner. "You think I haven't done a removal before? I've done fifty. This one's messy."

"Because Silas built it that way." Kade's voice was steady, too steady, the way people got right before they bled out or said something stupid. "He wants you scared."

"Yeah? It's working."

Kade leaned forward.