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"Don't you fucking move."
Her knee hit my chest like a piston and pinned me to the concrete. Cold barrel jammed right under my jaw.
"You jacked it, didn't you?" she hissed. "The glitch-chip. Answer me."
"Get off," I choked out. "You're crushing my—"
"Answer me!" She shoved the gun harder. Her breath hit my face, hot and pissed. "That chip was flagged dead. Corp black-tag. Nobody touches it and lives. So what are you?"
"A guy who needed cash," I spat. "What do you think?"
My neck was on fire.
Not like a burn. Like wires crawling under the skin. The chip I'd slammed into my vein an hour ago was waking up and it was hungry.
She stared down at me. Rook Vane. Corp hunter. Pretty in that lethal, gonna-kill-you way. Black tactical gear, hair pulled back tight, eyes that didn't blink.
"You don't even know what you stole," she said. Her voice dropped. Low. Dangerous. "That thing eats chrome. It eats people. It'll eat you from the inside if you don't feed it."
"Yeah?" I grunted. "Feels great so far. Really loving it."
She pressed her forearm across my throat. "Smartass scrap-rat. You think this is a joke?"
"I think you got a gun to my head and you're shaking," I said.
Her eyes narrowed. "I'm not shaking."
"Your hand is."
She leaned in closer. So close I could see the sweat on her upper lip, the faint scar cutting her left eyebrow. Her knee ground harder into my ribs.
"You have about thirty seconds before that thing fries your nervous system," she whispered. "You feel it? The itch? The static behind your teeth?"
I did. God, I did.
My left arm jerked on its own. Fingers spasmed. Chrome veins — thin, silver-black lines — started crawling up from the jack in my neck toward my jaw. Like ink in water. Like live wire.
"Oh shit," I breathed.
"Yeah. Oh shit," she said. "That's the Eater waking up. It's mapping you. And if it doesn't find chrome to eat in the next minute, it eats you."
"Get it out!" I grabbed at my neck. My nails scraped the swollen port. It pulsed. Hot. "Get it out of me!"
"Can't." She didn't move the gun. "You bonded it. It's in your blood now. You rip it out, you stroke out."
My back arched off the floor. A jolt ripped through me, teeth to toes. My vision glitched. For a second I saw her heat signature, saw the chrome in her own body light up like a circuit board — spine, ribs, throat.
"What the hell was that?" I gasped.
"It's scanning," she said. "Looking for food."
"There's nothing to eat here!"
"There is." Her eyes flicked down to my chest, then back to my face. Something tightened in her expression. "Me."
My hand shot up and grabbed her wrist. The gun wobbled.
"Don't," she warned.
"You're chromed," I said. My voice was raw, glitching, doubling over itself. "You're full of it. That's why it wants—"
"Let go of me."
"How much chrome you got in you, hunter?"
She tried to yank back. I held on. My grip was wrong. Too strong. The veins in my hand were glowing now, faint silver light pulsing under the skin.
"I said let go!" She slammed the butt of the gun against my temple. Stars burst.
I didn't let go.
The chip pulsed again. Harder. A voice — not a voice, a feed — crackled behind my eyes.
[COMPATIBLE CHROME DETECTED. CONSUME? Y/N]
"No," I hissed out loud. "No, I don't wanna—"
"Who are you talking to?" she snapped.
"It wants to eat you!" I stared at her, panicked. "It wants to rip your chrome out!"
For the first time, her cool cracked. Just a flicker. Fear.
"Then you better learn to tell it no, scrap-rat," she said. Her gun was still on me, but her other hand flew to her own neck, covering something. A port. Smaller than mine. Faded. "Because if you try, I'll put a round through your eye before you can twitch."
We were locked there. My hand on her gun wrist, her knee on my chest, both breathing hard. Her weight on me, her heat through the gear. Too close. Way too close.
"You need me alive," I said, forcing the words out through the static in my throat. "Right? That's why you haven't shot me. Corp wants the chip back intact."
"Corp wants you carved open on a table," she said. "I'm the only reason you're still breathing."
"Bullshit. You're hunting something. You need a stable gene. That's what Old Smokes said hunters like you burn out without."
Her jaw tightened. Bingo.
"You know nothing about me," she said.
"I know you're glitching too." I nodded at her hand on her neck. She was pale. Sweat sliding down her temple. "How long since your last stabilizer shot, Rook?"
Her eyes went wide. "How do you know my name?"
"It's on your cuff," I said. Lie. The chip had flashed it. Rook Vane. Threat Level: High. Gene Stability: 37% and dropping. "And you're running on empty. That's why you're shaking for real now."
She flinched. Her gun dipped half an inch.
I moved.
I twisted, rolled, slammed her onto her back. Now I was on top. My forearm across her chest, my other hand pinning her gun hand to the concrete. Chrome veins lit up my neck, crawling toward my cheek. I could feel them. Hot silver lines.
"Get off me!" she snarled, bucking under me. Strong. Really strong. Her hips hit mine as she tried to throw me.
"Stay still!" I barked, right back in her face. "You move and this thing might actually eat you!"
"You think you can hold me?"
"I think you're about to pass out and I don't want that thing to decide for me!"
She stared up at me, chest heaving, lips parted. Anger and something else. That forced proximity thing was doing its work. Her breath on my chin. My weight pinning her. Her thigh pressed hard against mine.
"You're not human anymore," she whispered, looking at the veins on my neck. "Look at you."
"Yeah, thanks, I noticed."
Her free hand scrabbled at her belt. Came up with something small and silver. A limiter cuff. Corp-issue. She always carried one for captures.
I grabbed it before she could use it on me.
"No," I said. "My turn."
"What?"
I snapped the cuff around her wrist. It hissed, locked, lights blinking red. Then I slapped the other end around my own wrist. Linked. One meter of flex-cable between us.
She stared at it, shocked. Then furious.
"You cuffed me? To you?" she spat. "Are you insane?"
"You weren't gonna let me walk," I said. My voice was shaking now, but not from fear. The chip was feeding back, syncing to her. I could feel her pulse through the cuff. Fast. Erratic. "And I wasn't gonna let you shoot me. So now we match. You try to run, you drag me. I try to run, I drag you. Forced proximity, princess."
"Don't call me princess."
"Don't put a gun to my head."
"Take it off!"
"No." I leaned in, nose almost touching hers. "You said it yourself. This thing eats chrome. You got chrome. I got the eater. We figure out how to not kill each other, or we both die here. That's the deal."
She yanked the cuff. It held. The cable sang taut.
"You have no idea what you just did," she said, low and lethal. "That cuff is keyed to my vitals. If I flatline, it shocks you into cardiac arrest. If you try to cut it—"
"Then we better not flatline," I cut her off.
We were breathing the same air. Her eyes locked on mine, furious, trapped. And for a second her gaze dropped to my mouth, then snapped back up. She felt it too. That stupid, dangerous tension.
"You don't even know how to control it," she muttered. "Those veins—"
"Then teach me," I said.
"Why would I help you?"
"Because you need a stable gene and I'm the only glitch that hasn't fried yet. Old Smokes said hunters like you—"
"Old Smokes talks too much."
The chip pulsed again, softer this time. The light in my veins dimmed a little, syncing to her rhythm. Her chrome was close, and the Eater liked it. Wanted it. But it was holding. For now.
She noticed it too. Her eyes widened, looking at my neck where the silver lines had stopped spreading.
"It's... stabilizing," she whispered. "Off my field."
"So I'm your stabilizer now?"
"Don't flatter yourself."
But her pulse was slowing. Color coming back a little.
Then her face twisted. Not anger. Pain.
"Rook?" I said.
She gasped. Her free hand went to her side. Came away red. Blood. So much blood. I hadn't even seen the wound under her gear. A stab? A graze from earlier?
"When did you—"
"Shut up," she gritted, trying to push me off. Her strength flickered. "I'm fine."
"You're not fine, you're bleeding out!"
"I said I'm—" Her eyes rolled. The gun slipped from her fingers and clattered on the concrete.
"Rook!" I caught her as she bucked once, then went limp under me. All that fight, gone in a second. Her head fell back, throat exposed, the little port on her neck blinking weak red.
Blood soaked through her shirt, hot against my hand.
The cuff between us flashed yellow. Warning. Her vitals dropping.
"Hey! Hey, stay with me!" I shook her, pressed my hand hard over the wound. "You don't get to do this! You don't get to cuff me and then—"
Her eyes fluttered, trying to focus on me. Lips moving, no sound.
The chip screamed behind my eyes.
[HOST COMPANION CRITICAL. CONSUME TO STABILIZE? Y/N]
My chrome veins flared bright silver, crawling fast up my jaw toward my eye, hungry for the chrome in her blood as she bled out on top of me, and the gun lay just out of reach while her pulse stuttered against my wrist—
"Rook, don't you dare—"