Chapter 21 · Echoes of a Ghost

"Don't move. Seriously, Kaelen, don't even breathe," Jax hissed, his voice tight with a kind of panic I hadn't heard from him yet.

I didn't listen. I couldn't. My hand was already moving, a blur of motion that didn't belong to me. My fingers had clamped around the cold steel of the combat knife on the table, and before I could even think the word *stop*, I had Jax pinned against the flickering holographic terminal. The blade was pressed right against the soft skin under his jaw.

I wasn't looking at him. I was looking *through* him. My vision was swimming in a sea of red static, and a voice—not my own, but a colder, deadlier version of it—was screaming in the back of my skull. *Target identified. Neutralize the asset.*

"Kaelen! Look at me!" Jax gasped, his hands coming up slowly, palms open. He was trembling, but he didn't pull away. "It's a glitch, okay? A neural echo. You're not in the field, you're in my damn living room!"

"You're lying," I snarled. The voice coming out of my mouth sounded like grinding glass. I pressed the knife harder.