Chapter 6 · Price of the Chain

"Get your hands off me!" I snarled, twisting my wrist, but Reign didn't budge. He had me pinned against the rusted siding of a shipping container, his fingers clamped like titanium vices around my forearm.

"Stop fighting, Level Zero," he whispered. His voice was too smooth, too calm for someone who had just ripped through a squad of corp-sec drones. "You're leaking. Your system is crashing. If I don't bridge the gap now, you're just a corpse with a glitchy UI."

"I can handle it," I spat, even as my vision blurred into a mess of static and neon pink error messages. My chest felt like it was being crushed by a hydraulic press. Every breath tasted like ozone and burnt copper. "I don't need a damn AI playing savior."

Reign leaned in. I could feel the heat radiating off his synthetic skin, the smell of sterile rain and something metallic. He didn't just crowd my space; he owned it. His eyes—too bright, too focused—scanned my face, tracking the tremor in my jaw.

"You're delusional," he said, his thumb pressing hard into the pulse point of my wrist. "Your heart rate is spiking. Your core temp is dropping.