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"Don't move."
Elara's hand slammed flat against my chest and pinned me to the cold slab. Her other hand was already on the collar around my neck.
"What the hell are you doing?" I choked out. "Get off me!"
"Shut up and listen." Her eyes flicked to the ceiling. To the red light blinking over the clinic door. "They tripped the city net. You hear that?"
I heard it. Sirens. Not one or two. The whole damn district screaming at once.
Wailing bounced off the concrete outside. Then the automated voice kicked in, loud enough to shake the windows.
"CITY-WIDE BIOHAZARD ALERT. LEVEL BLACK. UNREGISTERED CHROME-ROT CARRIER DETECTED. ALL CITIZENS SHELTER IN PLACE."
My blood went cold. "That's us, isn't it? That's me."
"No shit, Kyle." She dragged me up off the slab. Her grip was ice and steel. "Hale didn't just send a squad. He lit up the whole grid to find you. Every drone, every hound, every street cam is hunting that signal in your blood."
"Then take this thing off!" I grabbed at the collar. It burned under my fingers. "You said it was a jammer!"
"It is a jammer. And a leash." She didn't even blink. "You run out that door right now, you light up like a flare and they peel you apart in an alley. You stay here, you live another hour. Your choice."
"That's not a choice, that's blackmail!"
"Welcome to the Rust Belt, scrapper." She shoved a battered med-kit into my hands. "Hold this. And don't touch anything unless I tell you to."
The clinic was supposed to be a sanctuary. Some off-grid butcher shop she called safe. Now the shutters were slamming down on their own, auto-locking. The lights flipped to emergency red. Dust fell from the ceiling as something heavy thumped overhead. Drones.
"How long do we have?" I asked. My voice cracked.
"Not long." She was already moving, yanking drawers open, pulling out vials, a syringe gun that looked way too big. "They've got your heat sig from the last block. They'll sweep building by building."
"So what's the plan? Hide under the table and hope?"
"No." She turned on me, and suddenly she was way too close. Close enough I could see the faint chrome veins crawling up her neck, pulsing sick gray under her skin. Close enough to smell antiseptic and sweat on her. "We make a deal. Right now. No more games."
"A deal?" I laughed, but it came out raw. "You already collared me like a dog, what else do you want? My kidney?"
"Your blood." She said it flat. No apology. "And you want my protection. So we bind it."
"Bind it how?"
She slammed a small black case onto the slab between us. It popped open. Inside, two injector pens, linked by a thin, glowing tether line. Like a pair of handcuffs made of light.
"Blood pact," she said. "Corp tech. Old stuff. You and me, linked. My system monitors your vitals, masks your rot-signal through my filter. Your blood stabilizes my rot. We share the load."
I stared at it. "That sounds like you turning me into your personal pharmacy."
"It is." She didn't sugarcoat it. "You think I like this? I need a transfusion every forty-eight hours or my nervous system fries. You are the only clean source in this city. Without you, I'm dead in a week. Maybe less."
"And without you?" I shot back.
"Without me, you don't make it to midnight." Her hand shot out and grabbed my wrist. Her fingers were freezing. Mine were burning up. The contrast jolted through me. "Hale will have you on a table by 2 a.m. They won't be gentle, Kyle. They'll drain you dry and dump what's left."
Her thumb pressed hard into my pulse. I could feel her own pulse hammering against my skin, too fast, too uneven.
"So that's it?" I said. "I sign up to be your lab rat so I don't get hunted down like an animal?"
"You're already both." She leaned in, her forehead almost touching mine. Her breath hit my mouth. "Difference is, with me you get to talk back. You get to keep your spine. Try getting that deal from Hale."
I should have pulled away. I didn't. Her eyes were this crazy, desperate blue, and for a second she didn't look like some ice-cold corp witch. She looked terrified.
"What's the catch?" I whispered. "There's always a catch."
"There is." She let go of my wrist and picked up one of the injectors. "Once we do this, we're synced for thirty days. You feel what I feel if you spike. I feel if you try to run. If one of us flatlines, the other gets a shock that'll drop you. It's not romantic. It's a chain."
"Thirty days chained to you?" I said. "You're kidding."
"Do I look like I'm kidding?" She held the pen out to me. "You want to live? Take it. Stab it in your thigh and press. I'll do the same. Or walk out that door and see how far that collar lets you get before Hale's hounds rip it off with your head still attached."
The sirens got louder. Closer. Boots thudding in the alley now. Shouts. A drone's searchlight swept past the shutter slats, painting the room red-white-red.
My hand was shaking. I grabbed the pen. It was heavier than it looked, warm from the case.
"If you screw me over," I said, pointing it at her, "I swear I'll find a way to rot that pretty chrome right out of your neck."
A ghost of a smile touched her mouth. The first real one I'd seen. "If I screw you over, you'll be dead before you can try, scrapper. So don't give me a reason."
"Fine." I jammed the injector against my thigh. "On three?"
"On three." She pressed hers to her own throat, right over the gray veins. Her hand trembled. Just a little. "One."
"Two," I said.
We both pressed.
Hiss.
Fire shot up my leg, into my gut, into my chest. Not pain, exactly. Like ice water and live wire mixed. I gasped and doubled over, and Elara made this sharp, choked sound.
The tether between the pens flared bright white, then snapped into our skin. A thin, glowing line, like a tattoo, raced up my wrist and vanished under my sleeve. Same on her neck. I could suddenly feel her — not thoughts, but pressure. Her heartbeat hammering against my ribs like it was my own. Her ragged breath syncing with mine.
"Holy shit," I breathed. My vision swam. "What did you—"
"Breathe," she ordered, but her voice was thin. She was on her knees now too, one hand braced on the slab, the other clutching her throat. The gray in her veins was fading, just a fraction. "Just breathe through it. It settles."
I reached out without thinking and grabbed her arm to keep her from tipping over. Her skin was burning hot now. Mine was too. Where we touched, the glow pulsed.
"You okay?" I asked before I could stop myself.
"No thanks to you," she muttered, but she didn't pull away. Her eyes locked on mine, and for a second the air between us was too tight, too charged. Her lips were parted, her pulse jumping under my thumb. "You feel that? That's the link. We're stuck now, Kyle. You run, I feel it. I fall, you—"
BOOM.
The clinic door exploded inward off its hinges.
Metal screamed. Concrete dust and smoke rolled in. The red emergency light died, replaced by white tactical beams cutting through the haze.
A huge shadow filled the doorway, chrome-plated boots crunching over the fallen door.
"Kyle Wren," Marcus Hale's voice boomed through the smoke, low and amused and absolutely lethal, "and my favorite runaway lab rat. Did you really think a cheap jammer and a little blood kiss would hide you from—"