Chapter 27 · Echoes of Betrayal: The Ghost

“Get your hands off me and run, or I’ll leave you here to rot.”

Cain didn’t look at me. He couldn’t. He was slumped against the damp concrete of the undercity tunnel, chest heaving. He clutched his shirt tight over that twisted mark—the one I’d just seen.

I didn’t move. I couldn’t. The brand was burned into my retinas.

“You’re one of them,” I whispered. My throat felt like it was full of glass. “You aren’t some lapdog for the Council. You’re a Bounder. You were enslaved by the same system that took my brother.”

Cain snapped.

He lunged, his hand slamming into the wall beside my head with a crack that echoed through the sewer pipe. He was too close. I could smell ozone and burnt metal on his skin. I could feel the heat radiating off him in waves. His eyes weren't cold anymore. They were frantic.

“You think you know the story because you saw a few flashes of a memory?” He leaned in, his breath hot against my cheek. “You know nothing. You’re a walking battery with a death wish, Lyra. Stop playing detective and move before the Enforcers scent your core.