Chapter 13 · Glitchy Symbiosis

"Don't touch me." Vala's hand stopped three inches from my chest, fingers curled around the injector she had just stolen from a dead Corp medic.

"Then stop bleeding on my floor."

"Your floor can handle it."

"Your body can't."

She drove the injector into the side of my neck.

Cold fire shot through me. My back slammed against the metal cabinet, and every screen in the room flashed white. The room folded in half. For one ugly second, I saw two versions of Vala standing over me—one with a gun, one with a blade—then both images snapped together.

The Void spoke through my teeth.

**SYSTEM FAILURE. HOST HEART RATE UNSTABLE. FOREIGN CODE DETECTED.**

"Shut up," I gasped.

Vala leaned closer. Her black gloves brushed my jaw as she turned my face toward the light. "Are you talking to me?"

"I talk to everyone. You just happen to be the one holding the needle."

"That wasn't a joke."

"It wasn't meant to be."

Her eyes dropped to the thin blue lines crawling beneath my skin. They ran from my neck to my wrist, pulsing in time with the broken monitors behind her.

Vala's mouth tightened. "The code is spreading.