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"Don't you fucking touch me!"
Selene hit the floor hard and her hand shot to my throat before I could even kneel.
Her fingers were ice. Shaking. Black veins crawling up her wrist toward her elbow.
"Yeah, awesome," I said, grabbing her wrist. "Great time for murder. You're dying, Ice Queen. Sixty seconds, remember?"
"I said don't touch me!" she snarled, but her grip slipped. Her eyes rolled back for a second.
The crate behind us was screaming. Not metaphorically. The whole vault was screaming.
A siren ripped through the stone, high and raw, and red light started pulsing from the ceiling. The Void-Core we'd just ripped out of that ancient box was pulsing too, throwing ugly purple light across her face.
"What is that?" I snapped. "What did you trigger?"
"Beacon," she gasped. "You idiot. You triggered the city beacon. Every hunter in the Verge just heard it."
Her back arched. The black stuff — that parasite lock poison — was moving fast now, spiderwebbing up her neck.
My own hand was burning. Not from her. From the sigil on my palm. The glitchy thing that let me loot monsters was going nuts, hot and buzzing like it wanted to eat the poison right off her.
"Okay, okay," I said. "My thing is reacting. It wants it. Let me—"
"No!" She shoved me, weak. "Don't you dare loot me. You'll kill us both."
"I'm not looting you! I'm trying not to watch you die on my floor!"
The siren got louder. Boots thundered somewhere above us. Shouting. A whole squad moving fast.
Selene grabbed my shirt and yanked me down nose to nose. Her breath was short, hot against my mouth. Her eyes were wild, pissed, terrified.
"Listen to me, Milo. There's only one way."
"What way? Say it fast!"
"A bind," she hissed. "A life bind. Hunter's leash. You push your sigil into me, I push mine into you. It burns the poison out but it ties us. Together."
"Ties us how? Like handcuffs?"
"Like one leash, two throats!" she snapped. "You feel what I feel. I feel what you feel. Distance hurts. If one dies, the other—"
She choked as the black veins hit her jaw.
"Dies?" I finished for her.
"Or worse," she whispered. "So don't do it unless you mean it. Don't bind equals we both die here. Bind equals you're stuck with me. Forever."
The vault door above us slammed. Someone yelled, "Contact in the lower vault! Move, move!"
"Shit," I said. "How long do we have?"
"Twenty seconds before they breach," she said, her voice cracking. "Ten before my heart stops. Choose, Milo. Now."
I stared at her. This cold-as-ice elite huntress who'd wanted me gone since I fell through the floor into her world. Now she was on her back, poison in her blood, asking me to chain myself to her.
Power flipped. For once I was holding the leash.
"If we do this, you don't get to ditch me after," I said.
"If we do this, you don't get to run your mouth and get us killed," she shot back, even while dying.
"That's literally my best skill."
"Milo!"
"Okay! Okay! How do we do it?"
"Give me your hand," she ordered. "Palm to palm. And don't pull away. No matter how much it burns."
I slammed my palm against hers. Her sigil flared — clean silver, sharp as a blade. Mine flared too — that glitchy, broken, rainbow static that wasn't supposed to exist.
"On three, you push," she said. Her forehead was beaded with sweat, her lips pale. "You mean it. You want to live. You want me to live. You understand?"
"I want us to live, yeah, I got it!"
"One," she breathed.
The boots were right outside the vault door. Someone was cutting it.
"Two," she said, and her hand tightened on mine so hard my bones creaked.
Her eyes locked on mine. For a second there was no siren, no poison, just her stare pinning me.
"Don't you let go," she whispered.
"Three — push!" we both yelled.
Fire ripped up my arm.
Not like a burn. Like someone poured molten wire straight into my veins and pulled it through my wrist. I shouted before I could stop myself. Selene screamed — actually screamed — her back bowing off the floor.
Our sigils collided. Silver and static. They didn't mix. They fought, then fused, then branded.
A circle of light slammed around both our wrists, searing a mark into skin. A chain of light, then a solid black band with a single glowing line through it.
Two lives, one leash.
The poison in her neck recoiled. I felt it — holy shit, I actually felt it — like ice water being yanked out of her chest and through my palm. My sigil drank it, processed it, and shoved something warm back into her.
Selene gasped. A huge, ragged inhale. Color slammed back into her face.
"Oh my god," I panted. "Did it—"
"It worked," she whispered, staring at our locked wrists. Her breathing was fast, shallow. Her hand was still clamped in mine, sweaty, hot now. "We're bound."
I tried to pull my hand back an inch. The band on my wrist tightened and a sharp, nasty sting shot up to my elbow.
"Ow! What the hell?"
"I told you," she said, and there was this weird, shaky laugh in her voice. "Distance hurts. Don't test it."
She was still on the floor, I was kneeling over her, our hands locked, faces like six inches apart. Her hair was stuck to her forehead. My heart was hammering so loud I could hear it. And hers — I could feel hers too, thudding against my palm like it was my own.
"This is insane," I said. "You feel that?"
"I feel you freaking out, yeah," she said, but her voice was softer. Her eyes dropped to my mouth for half a second then snapped back up. "Stop. Get off me. We have to—"
The vault wall exploded.
Stone and dust blew inward and we both hit the deck as a breach charge ripped the side open. Light flooded in, white and harsh.
"Down! Down! Hands!" voices roared.
A squad poured through the smoke, black armor, rifles up, moving like they'd done this a thousand times. Twelve guns, maybe more. They fanned out, covering every corner.
Selene rolled, dragging me with her because — right, leash — and shoved me behind the crate. Her body was suddenly in front of mine, shielding, even though she was still shaking.
"Identify!" she barked, trying to sound like the elite huntress again. "Hunter Voss, rank B! This vault is claimed!"
The squad leader stepped through last. Tall, scarred, a captain's mark on his shoulder. His eyes swept the vault, the open crate, the pulsing Void-Core, then landed on our wrists. On the fresh, still-glowing bind mark. On my hand, where the rainbow static was still crackling.
His face changed.
"Holy shit," he breathed. Then he screamed it. "Glitch Sigil! That's a Glitch Sigil! Alive is ten times the bounty! Guns up, guns up! Do not kill it! I want him breathing!"
Twelve rifles swung. Twelve red dots landed on my forehead, my chest, Selene's back.
Selene's hand clamped down on mine so hard I felt her pulse spike through the bind.
"Milo," she whispered, low and furious and scared, "don't you dare move—"