Chapter 40 · Neon Trap

"Hold still. Let me get a good look at what my brother bought."

Selina's fingers were already under my chin, tilting my face up. Cold. Manicured. Her perfume was too sweet for the concrete room.

I couldn't move my hands. The cuffs weren't metal. They were field cuffs, humming faint against my wrists, killing every mod I had. My pulse was loud and useless.

"Don't touch me," I said.

"Or what?" She smiled. It didn't reach her eyes. "You're going to bite me? Go ahead. Try. I turned your little tricks off."

She circled me slow. Like I was something on display. The room was all white and glass, no doors I could see, just her and two guards by the wall and that low buzz from the dampener in the ceiling.

"Kael told me you were feral," she said. "He wasn't wrong. Look at you. Breathing hard. Eyes everywhere. Still thinking you can find an exit."

"There is an exit," I said. "You walked in through it."

"Cute." She tapped my cheek, light, patronizing. "You really think you're his partner? His hound? Honey, you're his leash. He holds you, someone else holds him. That's how this family works.