Chapter 25 · Face-to-Face with the Devil

"Don't even think about it, Kael. If you twitch, he'll fry your synapses before you can blink," Nyx’s voice hissed in my skull, sharp and cold.

I didn't listen. I lunged.

My boots skidded on the polished obsidian floor of the penthouse. I didn't care about the security drones humming overhead or the three guards with plasma rifles aimed at my chest. All I saw was Victor. He sat there behind a desk made of some extinct rainforest wood, looking like he’d just stepped out of a high-fashion catalog for sociopaths.

"Stay back!" one of the guards barked, his finger tightening on the trigger.

I didn't stop. I felt Nyx slam into my consciousness, a surge of forbidden code that locked my joints for a split second. I froze mid-stride, one leg hanging in the air, looking like a glitching android.

"Dammit, Nyx! Let me go!" I roared, the sound echoing off the floor-to-ceiling glass that looked out over the smog-choked city.

"I'm saving your life, you idiot," she snapped back. Her presence was a suffocating heat against the back of my mind, a digital ghost clawing at my nerves. "Look at the floor. Thermal tripwires.