Chapter 16 · Broken Resonance

"Stop shaking, Kyle. You're leaking static," Elara snapped, her voice cutting through the dark. She didn't look at him, but her hand clamped tight around his wrist, her fingers digging into the skin just above the pulse point.

"I'm not shaking," Kyle spat, though his vision was swimming in jagged grids of neon blue. "I'm vibrating. There's a difference."

"The difference is that you're about to short out every light in this block and give the hounds a glowing neon sign that says 'Here's the Glitch,'" she countered. She yanked him closer, forcing his back against the cold, damp brick of the alleyway. The proximity was sudden, suffocating. He could smell the ozone on her skin, mixed with something like sterile lab chemicals and a hint of expensive vanilla.

Kyle tried to pull away, but his muscles locked. The chrome rot in his veins was humming, a low-frequency scream that made his teeth ache. "Why do you even care? You're just using me as a walking blood bank. One bad surge and I'm a corpse. You'll just find another sample."

Elara paused. Her eyes, sharp and cold as surgical steel, flickered down to his lips before snapping back to his.