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"Stop fighting it, or I'll snap your wrist just to make you listen." Seth's voice was a low vibration against my ear, his grip tightening until I felt the bone groan.
I gasped, my back slammed hard against the cold metal of the safehouse wall. "Get off me, you corporate lapdog!"
"Wrong move," he muttered. He didn't let go. Instead, he shoved me further into the corner, his chest pressing against mine. I could feel the heat radiating off him, a sharp contrast to the sterile chill of the room. He smelled like ozone and expensive tobacco, the scent of a man who killed for a living and got paid in credits.
Outside, the city screamed. A massive siren tore through the air—the high-pitched, bone-shaking wail of a Sector-Wide Purge. That meant the Corporation wasn't just looking for me anymore. They were scrubbing the block. Anyone with a glitch-signature was getting deleted.
"Hear that?" Seth asked, his eyes locking onto mine. They were a piercing, unnatural gold, the mark of an elite Enforcer. "The cleaners are three blocks away. In ten minutes, this room becomes a microwave. You and I both fry unless we sync."
"Sync?" I spat, trying to wedge my knee between us. "I don't do partner work. Especially not with a guy who tried to put a bullet in my head an hour ago."
"You're a gutter-rat, Kaelen. You don't have the luxury of pride." He leaned in closer, his breath ghosting over my lips. The power imbalance was suffocating. He held my life in his hand, and he knew it. "The plug-in you installed—the 'God-tier' garbage—it's eating your neural net. You're glitching. If you don't bridge your code with a stable host, your brain is going to leak out of your ears before the Enforcers even reach the door."
I felt a spike of heat behind my eyes. He was right. The plug-in was humming, a hungry, parasitic vibration that made my vision stutter. "Why the hell would you help me?"
Seth's expression flickered. For a split second, the mask of the cold killer slipped, revealing something raw. Something desperate. "Because I'm rotting from the inside out, too. My neural core is collapsing. Your code is the only thing that can patch the leak."
He reached into his tactical vest and pulled out a blood-contract spike—a jagged, obsidian needle glowing with a dim crimson light. My stomach flipped. "No way. That's a soul-bind. If I sign that, I'm tethered to you. If you die, I crash. If I die..."
"If you die, I lose my cure," he interrupted, his voice hardening. "Now, shut up and give me your arm."
I didn't. I tried to bolt, but he was faster. He caught my waist, hoisting me up and pinning me against the wall again. The friction of his gear against my skin felt electric. He gripped my forearm, his fingers digging into my pulse point.
"Do it now, or I'll just let them kill you," he whispered. "I can live with that. Can you?"
I glared at him, my chest heaving. "I hate you."
"Good. Hate is a great motivator."
He slammed the spike into the junction of my wrist.
I screamed. It wasn't just physical pain; it was a psychic invasion. The world blurred, and suddenly, I wasn't in the room anymore. I was *him*.
Images flooded my mind like a broken film reel. A burning manor. A father's voice screaming for him to run. The feeling of cold needles sliding into his spine—the 'curse' of the elite, the price for his power. I saw the loneliness, the endless nights of scrubbing blood off his knuckles, the crushing weight of a loyalty that had been betrayed a thousand times over.
I gasped, my eyes snapping open. I was shaking, my breath coming in ragged sobs. Seth was staring at me, his face pale, his pupils blown wide. He had seen me, too. He'd seen the betrayal, the coldness of the gutter, the way I'd learned to trust nothing but my own code.
"Get... out of my head," he groaned, stepping back abruptly as if I were a contagion.
"You're... you're actually hurting," I whispered, my voice trembling. The tension between us had shifted. It wasn't just hunter and prey anymore. It was two broken things clinging to each other in a storm.
Seth straightened his jacket, the cold mask sliding back into place, but his hands were still shaking. "It's a temporary bridge. Don't get sentimental. We're bound now. If the Corporation finds us, we go down together."
He walked over to the holographic terminal and flicked a switch. A red screen flickered to life, displaying the city's most wanted list. I scanned the names, my heart hammering against my ribs.
"Wait," I said, stepping forward. "Why is my name on the Priority Alpha list? I'm just a low-life hacker. I don't have enough credits to be a target for the Cloud District."
Seth looked at me, his gaze lingering on the mark on my wrist. "You think this was about the plug-in? Kaelen, you aren't just a glitch. You're a key. And the people who want that key don't care if they have to burn the whole city to get it."
Suddenly, the terminal beeped. A new notification popped up, flashing in bright, neon violet.
*Bounty Updated: Kaelen. Status: Alive or Dead. Reward: 50 Million Credits.*
"Fifty million?" I whispered. "I'm worth fifty million?"
"You're a goldmine," Seth said, his voice dropping an octave. He stepped back toward me, the distance closing again. He didn't touch me this time, but I could feel the air thicken. "And unfortunately for you, I'm the only one who knows how to keep you hidden."
I looked at the screen, then back at him. "What happens if I just leave?"
Seth let out a short, dark laugh. He reached out, his thumb grazing the skin just above the blood-contract mark. The touch was light, almost tentative, but it sent a jolt of heat straight to my core.
"Try it," he whispered. "See how far you get before the bind snaps your neck."
Just as the words left his mouth, the plug-in in my brain surged. It wasn't a stutter this time. It was a roar.
*PREDICTION ACTIVE: 5 SECONDS.*
I froze. The world slowed down. I saw the door behind us. I saw the lock shatter. I saw a flash of steel—a monofilament blade—slicing through the air, aimed directly at the back of Seth's neck.
"Move!" I screamed, throwing my weight against him.
Seth reacted with a blur of motion, twisting his body just as the door exploded inward. The blade hissed through the air, missing his jugular by a fraction of an inch.
A figure stepped through the smoke, clad in matte-black stealth armor, eyes glowing with a predatory red light. A third-party killer. A mercenary from the Void-Sect.
"Who the hell is this?" Seth snarled, drawing his sidearm.
I stared at the killer, and then my vision flickered again. The prediction didn't stop. It extended.
*PREDICTION ACTIVE: 6 SECONDS.*
It was evolving. And as the hunger of the plug-in gnawed at my mind, I realized something terrifying. The code wasn't just predicting the future—it was demanding a price for every second it gave me.
"Seth," I whispered, my voice sounding distant even to me. "He's not alone."
Behind the first killer, a dozen more red eyes ignited in the darkness of the hallway, and the lead mercenary spoke, his voice a distorted metallic rasp.
"Hand over the girl, Enforcer, and we might let you die quickly."