"Get your hands off me before I rip them off," I spat, but my voice sounded like I’d been eating gravel.
Eve didn't even blink. She had me pinned against the cold, brushed-steel wall of the medical bay, her fingers digging into my shoulder with a strength that didn't match her frame. Her breath was hot against my neck, smelling of expensive mint and something metallic. Desperation. Pure, raw desperation.
"Shut up," she hissed, her eyes scanning the room. "The scanners are already pinging the perimeter. If the Syndicate’s hounds find us here, I can't protect you. I can't even protect myself."
I let out a jagged laugh. "Protect me? You’re literally draining me like a battery, Princess. I think we’re past the protection stage."
She shoved me harder against the wall, her chest pressing into mine. For a second, the friction of her silk suit against my shredded shirt sent a jolt through me that had nothing to do with the Blood Protocol. I could feel her heart hammering—fast, erratic, like a trapped bird. She was crashing. Again.
"You don't get it," she whispered, her gaze dropping to my throat where the vein was pulsing. "You're the only thing in this godforsaken city that isn't corrupted. Your blood... it's the only reason I'm still breathing."
I smirked, despite the dizziness. "Sounds like you're addicted. Who's the puppet now?"
Her eyes flashed—a flicker of that ice-cold heiress coming back—but then her knees buckled. She didn't fall, but she slumped against me, her forehead resting on my collarbone. I could feel the heat radiating off her skin. She was burning up from the inside out.
Outside, a siren wailed, a deep, guttural drone that shook the floorboards. The city-wide lockdown. The Syndicate wasn't just looking for a glitch; they were scrubbing the sector.
"We need a link," she gasped, clutching my arm. "A permanent one. Not just this... this scavenging. If we bind our protocols, we can mask our signatures. You'll be invisible to the scanners, and I'll stop crashing every ten minutes."
I pulled back just enough to look her in the eye. "A bind? You're talking about a soul-tether. If you die, I go down with you. If I get hurt, you feel it. That's a hell of a lot of trust for someone who kidnapped me."
"I'm not asking you to trust me," she snapped, regaining some of her poise. She reached into the medical console and pulled out a shimmering, obsidian-black needle. The tip glowed with a faint, hungry violet light. "I'm offering you a deal. You sign this contract with your blood, and I'll give you a cut of the Syndicate's encrypted data. Enough to buy your way out of the gutters and into the High Sector."
I looked at the needle, then at her. She was trembling. The great Eve of the Syndicate, reduced to begging a 'Shell' for a lifeline. The power shift was intoxicating. I liked it. I liked it way too much.
"What's the catch?" I asked, leaning in. I could smell the ozone from the medical equipment, the sterile scent of the room mixing with her perfume. "Nothing in Neon City is free, especially not from a corporate shark."
"The catch is that you belong to me," she said, her voice dropping to a low, dangerous velvet. "Until the protocol stabilizes, you go where I go. You eat when I say. You breathe when I allow it. You're not a citizen anymore, Kai. You're my asset."
"Asset, huh?" I gripped her wrist, twisting it slightly so the needle was pointed toward her own arm. "I don't do well with owners. How about this: we bind, but the data is transferred to a neutral drive every twenty-four hours. If I die or you betray me, the drive wipes and the Syndicate gets a direct ping to your current coordinates."
Eve stiffened. Her eyes narrowed, calculating the risk. For a long moment, the only sound was the distant thud of boots hitting the pavement outside. They were close. Too close.
"Fine," she whispered. "Deal."
She didn't wait for me to agree. She slammed the needle into my forearm.
I gasped, my muscles locking up as the violet light surged from the device into my veins. It wasn't like the previous drain; this was an invasion. It felt like liquid fire racing up my arm, twisting around my spine, and slamming into the base of my skull. I groaned, my grip on her wrist tightening instinctively, pulling her flush against me.
Eve let out a sharp cry, her head snapping back. I could feel it—the link snapping into place. Suddenly, I wasn't just feeling my own pain. I felt her panic. I felt the jagged, electric shards of her crashing system. And beneath that, a strange, humming hunger that mirrored my own.
She gasped, her hands clutching my shoulders, her nails digging through the fabric. "God... it's so... loud," she whispered.
"What is?" I managed to choke out.
"Your mind," she breathed, her eyes wide and glazed. "It's not empty. It's... screaming."
I shoved her off me as the surge subsided, both of us panting, drenched in sweat. The room felt smaller. The air thicker. I could feel her presence now, a constant, low-frequency vibration in the back of my mind. We were tethered. Bound by a forbidden glitch and a desperate contract.
"Now get the hell away from me," I said, though my voice lacked its usual bite. I was exhausted, my vision swimming.
"Don't be dramatic," she replied, though she was leaning heavily against the console for support. She looked wrecked, but there was a glow in her skin now—a healthy, stolen vibrancy. "The link is holding. The scanners won't find us if we move now."
I stood up, my legs shaking. "Move where? We're in a locked-down sector with a hundred corporate kill-teams outside."
"The sub-levels," she said, her voice regaining its command. "There's an old transit line the Syndicate forgot about. We can get to the safehouse by—"
She stopped. Her face went pale.
"What?" I asked. "What's wrong?"
She didn't answer. Instead, she slowly reached for the holographic projector on the table. A red notification was blinking. A priority-one transmission.
I stepped closer, the proximity making my skin prickle. The holographic screen flickered to life, revealing a man with a face like a carved mask—perfect, symmetrical, and utterly devoid of warmth. Silas.
He didn't look at the camera; he was looking at a map of the city, his voice smooth and cold as a surgical blade.
"Eve, darling," Silas said, his tone mocking. "I know you've found him. I can see the protocol spike on the grid. It's a beautiful signature, isn't it? Almost a shame to waste it."
Eve froze, her breath hitching. "Silas. I'm handling it."
"Are you?" Silas chuckled, and the sound made the hair on my neck stand up. "Because the bounty just went live, Eve. Not just for the boy, but for anyone helping him. The reward for Kai's head is now higher than your own inheritance. I wonder... how long will your loyalty to a 'battery' last when the whole city is hunting him?"
I looked at Eve. She was staring at me, her expression unreadable. The bond between us hummed, and for the first time, I felt a spike of genuine fear coming from her. Not for herself. For me.
"He's not a battery," she whispered, but it was too late.
Silas leaned in, his eyes locking onto the camera, as if he could see me standing right there. "I'll give you one hour, Eve. Bring him to me, or I'll burn the entire sector to find him myself."
The screen went black, leaving us in a suffocating silence.
"So," I said, my voice trembling. "About that 'protection' you mentioned."
Before she could answer, the heavy blast doors of the medical bay groaned, the metal shrieking as something on the other side began to tear them open with raw, mechanical force.