Chapter 13 · Deadline Overload

"Don't you dare crash on me!" Lilith's hand slammed into my chest and pinned me to the server rack.

The metal burned cold through my shirt. My vision was pure red error code.

"Kai! Look at me!" she shouted, right in my face. "You hear me? Eyes on me!"

I couldn't. The Reaper Plugin was screaming inside my skull.

DEADLINE OVERLOAD. SYSTEM INTEGRITY: 41%. 39%. 34%.

"Too much," I choked out. "I took too much—"

"You think?" She grabbed my jaw, forced my head up. Her fingers were hot. Too hot. "You pulled the whole damn archive into your head! What did you expect would happen?"

The alarms were still screaming from the last chapter. Trackers inside. Viktor's hounds were already in the walls. And I was glitching out on the floor like a busted holo.

My left arm wasn't my arm anymore. It was flickering. Lines of code bleeding through skin.

"Get it out," I gasped. "Lilith, get it out of me!"

"I can't!" She dropped to her knees with me, her knees hitting the concrete hard. "You locked it!