Chapter 17 · Welcome to the Scrap Heap

"Get your face out of my sight before I carve it off," I spat, slamming my back against a rusted pillar.

I wasn't talking to Jaxon. I was talking to the thing standing ten feet away. It had my eyes. My jawline. The same jagged scar running through my left eyebrow. But its expression was blank, a terrifying void where a soul should be.

"Kael, focus," Jaxon hissed. He stepped in front of me, his boots crunching on a carpet of discarded servos and shattered glass. He didn't look back, but I could feel the heat radiating off his shoulders. He was shielding me, and for a second, that feeling—that raw, stupid need to be protected—made my stomach flip.

"Focus on what?" I snarled, my voice cracking. "The fact that there are fifty of me in this dump?"

As if on cue, more of them emerged from the smog. They didn't walk; they glided, their movements synchronized and eerie. They were wearing the same scrapped tactical gear I had on, but stripped of any insignia. Just blank, grey shells.

"They aren't talking," Jaxon noted, his hand tightening around the grip of his pulse-pistol. "Which means they're on a hive-mind loop.