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"Still breathing, convict? That’s a shame. I was hoping this loop would be shorter," Vera’s voice cut through the ringing in my ears.
I didn't see her. I just felt the cold, heavy press of her boot slamming into the small of my back, pinning me face-down against the wet concrete. The air left my lungs in a pathetic wheeze.
"Get up," she commanded, her voice a low, dangerous hum. "Or do I need to break a few more ribs to make you cooperative?"
I tried to push myself up, but my arms were shaking. My muscles felt like they were being shredded from the inside out. That was the price of the reset—my body remembered every wound, even if the world forgot the blood.
"What... what did you do?" I managed to spit out, my voice sounding like I'd swallowed a handful of gravel.
"What did I do?" She leaned down, her lips close to my ear, the scent of ozone and expensive metal clinging to her. "I killed you, Kael. Again. And again. And yet, here you are, still twitching. You’re starting to become a glitch in the system. And I hate glitches."
She grabbed the back of my collar and yanked me up with a strength that didn't make sense for her size. I was slammed against the corrugated metal wall of the alley, my feet barely touching the ground. Her eyes—sharp, clinical, and utterly devoid of mercy—searched mine.
"Tell me how you're doing it," she hissed. "The others... they just break. They go catatonic after the tenth loop. But you? You're getting faster. You're fighting back. Who's teaching you?"
"Nobody," I gasped, clutching at her wrist. "I'm just... tired of dying."
"Liar." She pressed her forearm against my throat, cutting off my air. The power dynamic was clear: she held the leash, and I was the dog getting choked. "You're hiding something. A trick. A cheat. Give it to me, or I'll make sure your next death takes an hour."
I could feel my pulse hammering against her arm. But then, I felt it. That spark. The thing I'd grabbed in the last second of the previous loop. It wasn't a memory; it was a physical weight in my chest, a jagged piece of someone else's soul.
I didn't think. I just reached out and slammed my palm against her chest, right over her heart.
*Give it to me.*
There was no explosion, no flash of light. Just a sudden, violent vacuum. For a split second, our eyes locked, and I felt a surge of electricity rip through my arm, smelling of burnt copper. Vera's eyes widened. Her grip on my throat slackened, not because she wanted to, but because her body suddenly jolted as if she'd been hit by a live wire.
"What the—" she started, but I didn't let her finish.
I shoved her back with a force I didn't know I possessed. She flew three feet, her boots skidding on the grime, her expression shifting from dominance to pure, unadulterated shock.
I dropped to my knees, gasping. My chest was on fire. I could feel something new knitting itself into my nervous system—a flicker of speed, a predatory instinct that wasn't mine. I had stolen a piece of her. Not her whole power, but a fragment. A spark.
"You..." Vera whispered, her voice trembling. She didn't look angry anymore. She looked terrified. "You touched me. You actually touched me."
"Is that a crime?" I managed to smirk, though it felt more like a grimace. I stood up slowly, my legs feeling steadier than they had in ten loops. "I'm just catching up to your level, Enforcer."
"You shouldn't be able to do that," she said, stepping toward me. She didn't reach for her weapon this time. She was analyzing me, her gaze sliding over my body like I was a specimen in a jar. "No Iteration has ever retained anything. You're a freak. A mistake."
"Call me what you want," I said, stepping closer, closing the gap. The power shift was intoxicating. For the first time, I wasn't the one begging for mercy. I could see the slight tremor in her hand. "But I think we both know you're not going to report this. Not yet."
"And why wouldn't I?" she asked, though she didn't move away.
"Because you're bored," I replied, my voice dropping. I could feel the heat radiating off her, the tension in the air thick enough to choke on. "You've been hunting the same ghosts for years. Then along comes a glitch that can actually fight back. You don't want me dead. You want to know how I'm breaking the rules."
She narrowed her eyes, her breath hitching. She stepped even closer, her chest almost brushing mine. The air between us felt charged, a dangerous mix of hatred and curiosity.
"You're arrogant," she whispered. "You're a piece of trash in a dying city, and you think you've found a loophole."
"I didn't find it," I said, my hand twitching. "I'm becoming it."
I lunged.
It wasn't a punch. I grabbed her wrist, twisting it behind her back in one fluid motion—a move I'd seen a guard do three loops ago. I slammed her against the wall, mirroring exactly what she'd done to me minutes prior.
"Let go!" she snapped, struggling, but the new speed in my veins made her movements feel sluggish.
"Quiet," I hissed, leaning in. I could smell the salt of her skin, feel the frantic beat of her heart against my arm. "Here's the deal, Vera. You stop trying to kill me for the next hour, and I might tell you what it feels like to actually win something."
"I'll kill you the second I get loose," she spat, but she didn't fight as hard. There was a flicker of something in her eyes—not love, not even respect, but a raw, hungry fascination.
"Maybe," I said. "But until then, you're my ride out of this sector."
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the jagged metal shard I'd scavenged from the previous death. I pressed it against the skin of her wrist, not deep enough to bleed, but enough to threaten.
"Don't," she warned, her voice low. "If you mark me, Mord will know. He'll scrub your mind until there's nothing left but a scream."
"Then don't give him a reason to look," I replied.
I let her go, but I didn't step back. I stayed in her space, watching her chest heave as she tried to regain her composure. She looked at me—really looked at me—and for a second, the mask of the Enforcer slipped. She looked like she wanted to strangle me and kiss me at the same time, just to see which one would kill us first.
"You're insane," she whispered.
"I'm a convict in a time loop," I said, glancing toward the end of the alley where the sirens were already beginning to wail. "Insanity is the only thing that's keeping me sane."
We both froze as a spotlight swept across the brickwork above us. The search teams were closing in.
"Run," she said, her voice suddenly sharp.
"Where?"
"To the transit hub. If you can make it there without getting your head blown off, maybe I'll consider not executing you on sight."
I didn't wait for her to change her mind. I bolted, the new power in my legs propelling me forward with a jarring, unnatural speed. My vision blurred at the edges, the world stretching into a smear of grey and neon.
I dove behind a stack of rusted crates just as a burst of plasma fire scorched the air where I'd been standing. I pressed my back against the cold metal, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
I looked down at my hand. It was still humming. The spark I'd stolen from Vera was vibrating, trying to merge with my own fractured essence. It felt like a parasite, eating away at the edges of my consciousness, whispering things I didn't want to hear.
*More. Find more. Take it all.*
I grinned, a jagged, broken expression. I wasn't just surviving anymore. I was collecting.
I peeked around the corner. Two more Enforcers were advancing, their armor gleaming under the artificial lights. They moved with a synchronized, robotic precision.
I checked my surroundings. A broken pipe, a pile of debris, and a narrow ventilation shaft twenty feet up the wall.
*I can do this,* I thought. *I can actually do this.*
I launched myself forward, not hiding, but charging. I used the speed—Vera's speed—to close the gap before the first guard could even raise his rifle. I slid across the concrete, sweeping his legs out from under him with a brutal, efficient strike.
As he hit the ground, I didn't finish him. I grabbed his throat, feeling the cold metal of his collar.
"Who are you?" the guard gasped, his eyes wide with terror. "You're... you're the one from the logs..."
"I'm the glitch," I whispered.
I didn't kill him. Not yet. I just held on, waiting for the second guard to react.
But as I looked up, I saw a figure standing at the end of the alley. Not a guard. Not a drone.
It was Vera.
She wasn't helping them. She was just watching, her arms crossed, a strange, crooked smile on her face. She looked at me not as a prisoner, but as something she'd just discovered under a microscope.
"You're slower than I thought," she called out, her voice echoing in the narrow space.
I let go of the guard and stood up, my muscles screaming. I started to move toward her, but she didn't budge.
"Stop right there, Kael," she said, her tone shifting. "The rules just changed."
I stopped. "What rules?"
"Mord just issued a priority override," she said, her eyes narrowing. "He doesn't want you dead anymore. He wants you brought in—alive and intact."
I felt a cold pit open in my stomach. Dying was easy. Dying was the only thing I was good at. Being 'intact' in Mord's world meant something far worse.
"I'm not going back to the hole," I said, my voice hardening.
"You don't have a choice," she replied.
She raised her hand, and suddenly, the ground beneath my feet began to shift. The concrete groaned, folding in on itself like paper. The entire alleyway was warping, the walls bending at impossible angles.
I tried to jump, but the gravity shifted, slamming me hard against the ceiling.
As I hung there, staring down at her, she leaned in, her eyes gleaming with a terrifying curiosity.
"Welcome to the new loop, glitch," she whispered, "and this time, I'm the one holding the key."