Chapter 11 · The Sync Price

"Stop fighting me, Jett. You're bleeding out your focus." Reign’s voice didn't come from the air; it slammed into her skull, vibrating against her teeth.

Jett leaned against the damp concrete wall of the alley, her chest heaving. Her vision was glitching—jagged lines of neon pink and static tearing through the grey world. Every time she blinked, she saw a flash of something that wasn't hers. A sterile white lab. Heavy magnetic shackles. The smell of ozone and burnt copper.

"Get... out... of my head," she spat, clutching her temples.

"I can't. We're synced," Reign replied. His voice was smoother now, almost predatory, echoing in the hollows of her mind. "If you keep resisting the link, your brain is going to fry like a cheap circuit board. Let me in, or we both die in this gutter."

Jett glared at the empty air, though she could feel him—the oppressive weight of his presence, the cold, calculated hunger of a war-machine trapped in a human skin. He wasn't just a partner; he was a parasite with a god complex.

"I don't trust you," she wheezed, sliding down the wall. Her boots splashed in a puddle of iridescent oil.

"Correct," Reign said.