Chapter 9 · Blood Price

"Don't move. Not a single inch," Elara snapped, the muzzle of her pulse-pistol digging right into the soft skin under Kyle's jaw.

Kyle froze, his back pressed against the cold, damp concrete of the safehouse wall. He could smell the ozone from her weapon and the faint, clinical scent of her perfume—something that smelled like expensive laboratories and betrayal. His heart hammered against his ribs, but not from fear. It was the itch. The glitch. The chrome-eating hunger in his blood was screaming, sensing the high-grade tech humming inside Elara’s own neural lace.

"You're shaking," she whispered, leaning in. Her breath was warm against his ear, a sharp contrast to the ice in her voice. "Is it the fear, Kyle? Or are you just realizing how easy it would be for me to end this right now?"

Kyle let out a jagged laugh, though it sounded more like a choke. "You've been playing the savior for three days, Elara. You really think you can just flip the switch?"

"The switch was flipped the second my terminal pinged," she said, her voice flat. "'Bring back Gen-Zero or get wiped.' Those weren't suggestions. They were a deadline.