Chapter 23 · Marked Registry - Chapter 23: The Living Key

Ella's hand closed around Mia's wrist before she could think it through.

The red wires hummed under her palm. Warm. Alive. Like they had a pulse of their own.

Mia flinched back. "Don't."

"I'm getting you out." Ella's fingers found the first wire junction, a metal clasp bolted straight into Mia's skin. No bandage. No padding. Just raw entry points that looked surgical and wrong.

Mia shook her head. Hard. "You can't. Ella, you can't just pull them."

"Watch me."

"I'm serious." Mia's voice cracked. She looked thinner than Ella remembered, her face all angles and shadows under the lab's cold white lights. "If you disconnect me, they'll know. They'll come."

Ella glanced back at the door. Cain was still out there, holding the hall. They had maybe five minutes before someone noticed the surveillance loop he'd rigged. Maybe less.

"Then we move fast." She tugged at the clasp. It didn't budge.

Mia grabbed her hand. Squeezed. "You're not listening. I'm not just hooked up to this thing. I *am* this thing."

Ella froze.

"What?"

"The whole network runs through me." Mia's eyes were wet now, but she wasn't crying. She looked past that. Hollow.