Chapter 19 · Symbiotic Poison: No Way Back

"Don't you dare pull away," Sloane hissed, her fingers digging into my shoulder with enough force to bruise.

I tried to jerk back, but my muscles weren't listening. A violent shudder ripped through my spine, and I felt the mutation—that jagged, wrong kind of heat—clawing its way up my neck. It felt like liquid glass flowing through my veins, trying to rewrite my DNA into something monstrous.

"I can't... I can't breathe," I gasped, my lungs seizing.

Sloane didn't offer a comforting word. She didn't do comfort. Instead, she slammed me back against the rusted metal wall of the alleyway, the impact knocking the wind out of me. She pressed her body flush against mine, her chest heaving, her eyes scanning my face with a mixture of disgust and desperation.

"Shut up and take it," she commanded.

She grabbed my wrist, dragging my hand up to the back of her neck. The second our skin met, the world tilted. A shockwave of cold, clinical precision slammed into the heat of my mutation. It wasn't a gentle transition; it was a collision.