Chapter 35 · Price of the Protocol

"Don't you fucking touch that dial," I snap, but Kael's hand is already locked around my wrist.

His fingers are hot. Too hot. Like he's running a fever that should have put him on the floor.

"Let go," I say.

"No." His thumb presses right over my pulse. Hard. "You move and you fry the whole sequence."

The table I'm strapped to is cold against my back. Not a med table. A rig. Cables everywhere. Needles in my arm, in my neck. And the screen above us is flashing my genome like it's a shopping list.

My blood is in the tubes. His blood is in the tubes. And the machine between us is drinking from me to feed him.

"What is this?" I jerk against the cuff. It doesn't budge. "Kael, what the hell is this?"

"Stabilization," he says. Flat. Like I'm asking about the weather.

"Bullshit." I twist harder. The needle in my neck tugs. "That's my code running into you. That's not stabilization, that's siphoning."

He doesn't answer. He just stares at the numbers climbing on his side of the display. His jaw is locked so tight I can see it jump.

"Answer me," I say.