Chapter 30 · Blood Price

"Don't you fucking move!" The scalpel kisses Rook's throat before I can take another step.

I freeze. One foot off the ground. Hand half to the blade at my hip.

The rip-doc isn't Old Smokes. It's some corp butcher in a clean white coat and he's got Rook by the hair, yanked back, that chrome scalpel right on her pulse.

"Kade, don't," Rook grits out. Her eyes are on me, not him. "It's a trap, you idiot. It's always a trap."

"Yeah, no shit," I snap. "You think I didn't know that?"

The room's too white. Too clean. My sister's strapped to the table in the middle, wires in her arms, chest barely moving. And there's like six more blades hanging from the ceiling on arms. All pointed down.

"Let her go," I say to the butcher. "You want me. I'm right here."

"Oh, we want you both," he says. Smiles with teeth that are too even. "The glitch and the stabilizer. Two for one. Management will be thrilled."

"You said there was a cure," Rook hisses at him. Her hands are fisted at her sides. She could break his wrist. She doesn't. Because the scalpel would open her first.