Chapter 12 · Cuffed Tight

"Stop twitching or I'll give you a reason to scream," Rook snapped, her voice tight. She didn't look at me. She was too busy jamming a heavy-duty magnetic cuff around my wrist, clicking it into the rail of the medical cot with a violent snap.

I tried to pull back, but my muscles felt like they were being shredded from the inside. A hot, electric surge ripped through my forearm, making my fingers curl into claws. I coughed, and a thick spray of black, metallic blood splattered across the white sheets.

"What the hell is happening to me?" I gasped. My voice sounded like gravel in a blender.

"Your system is crashing, Kade," she said, finally looking at me. Her eyes were cold, but there was a flicker of something—panic, maybe—deep in the iris. "That chip isn't just eating chrome. It's eating you. If we don't stabilize your gene-sync in the next ten minutes, your heart's going to beat itself through your ribs."

I let out a jagged laugh that turned into another cough. "Great. Fantastic. I'm dying. You got any water?"

"Shut up," she commanded. She leaned over me, her face inches from mine.