Chapter 18 · The Blood Key

I couldn't move.

Not my hands. Not my feet. My body felt like it belonged to someone else, like I was stuck inside a shell that wasn't mine anymore. The red light from the black box pulsed in front of me, steady and hungry, and I could feel it pulling at something under my skin. Not pain. Worse. Like it was reaching through my nerves and hooking into the parts of me I didn't even know were there.

"Kira." Senna's voice came from somewhere to my left, careful and low. "Talk to me."

I tried. My mouth wouldn't open. My jaw felt locked, like the tendons had fused solid. The freight bay around us blurred at the edges, and all I could see was that red pulse, that hypnotic throb that matched the rhythm in my chest. Not my heartbeat. Something else. Something older.

"Shit." Senna moved closer. I heard her boots scrape the deck, heard her breath hitch. "Kira, listen to me. You need to pull back. Whatever that thing's doing, you need to—"

My hand twitched. Lifted. I didn't tell it to.

My fingers stretched toward the console, toward the box, like they knew exactly where to go.