Chapter 28 · Eat or Get Eaten

"Get the hell away from me, Rook!"

I screamed it, but the sound didn't even come from my throat. It was a distorted, metallic rasp that vibrated in my teeth. I backed into the rusted plating of the alley wall, my fingers twitching. Only they weren't fingers anymore. Black, jagged carbon-steel claws had ripped through my skin, dripping a mixture of oil and blood onto the concrete.

"Kade, look at me," Rook said. She didn't move back. She didn't even flinch. She just stood there in the rain, her boots splashing in a puddle of neon-pink runoff.

"I can't!" I snarled, my vision flickering. The world was splitting into heat maps and data streams. Red. Everything was red. And she—she was the brightest, hottest target in the room. The Gene-Eater chip in my skull wasn't just humming anymore; it was screaming. It didn't want a fight. It didn't want a scrap of metal. It wanted her. It wanted the stabilizer humming in her veins.

"You're glitching," she said, taking a step forward. Her voice was too calm. It pissed me off. "Your heart rate is hitting two hundred.