Chapter 24 · Drake Finally Steps Into the Light

"You're asking me to die on live broadcast."

Mara's voice was flat. She stood in the doorway of the control room, one hand braced on the frame, the other pressed to her ribs like she could hold herself together through force of habit.

Lyra didn't look away. "I'm asking you to let me use your heartbeat as proof. The implant Drake gave you. It's the only thing left that ties her signature to the bomb."

"My heartbeat." Mara laughed, low and brittle. "The thing keeping me alive."

"It won't kill you," Jude said from behind the console. His fingers moved across the cracked screen, pulling up schematics that looked like they'd been ripped straight out of Drake's private server. "The broadcast protocol taps into the regulatory signal. It doesn't override it. You'll feel it. But you won't flatline."

"You'll *feel it*," Mara repeated. She looked at Lyra, not Jude. "That's your pitch?"

Lyra crossed the room in three steps and stopped close enough that Mara had to tilt her chin up. "Drake put that thing in your chest because she thought you'd never talk. She thought you'd be too scared to move, too broken to fight back. Prove her wrong."