Chapter 16 · Contract Patch

“Don’t even think about it,” Sloane snapped, her voice cutting through the hum of the neon rain. She didn’t move her hand from the grip of her pulse-pistol, but the muzzle was still angled right at my sternum.

I leaned back against the damp brick of the alley wall, the cold seeping through my thin jacket. My wrists were still locked in high-grade polymer cuffs, biting into my skin every time I breathed. “What? I’m just looking at the rain, Officer. Is that a crime now?”

“Lying is a crime. Being a walking genetic anomaly is a felony. And whatever the hell you just did to those hunters? That’s a one-way ticket to a dissection table,” she said. She stepped closer, the heavy thud of her combat boots echoing in the narrow space. She stopped just inches away, her scent—something like ozone and sharp citrus—hitting me harder than the rain.

I looked up at her. Her eyes were cold, but there was a flicker of something else. Hesitation? Or maybe just the lingering shock of the neural sync.