Chapter 8 · Forbidden Symbiosis

"Don't you dare touch that dial," Eve snapped, her palm slamming down over my hand.

Her skin was ice cold. Mine was burning.

"You said you wanted power," she hissed. "This is how you get it. You don't get to flinch now."

"Yeah, and you said this thing wouldn't fry my brain," I shot back. "That needle's the size of my thumb, princess. You sure you know what you're doing?"

The med-bay was too small. That's the problem. One bed, one console, one bio-locked door that was now flashing amber because the whole damn city was hunting us. Her private medical pod smelled like ozone and expensive disinfectant, and we were locked in it chest to chest.

Eve's forearm was already strapped into the extractor. Thin blue veins lit up under her skin where her Blood Protocol was crashing. Again. She was glitching hard and trying not to show it.

"I know exactly what I'm doing," she said. "You're the variable. Your protocol is... contaminated. Unstable. If we sync wrong, you could crash me faster."

"Great. Love that for me. So what's the plan?