Chapter 15 · The Price of a Promise

Leia came back to herself inside a scream.

It tore out of her throat and slammed the chamber walls hard enough to rattle the glass. White light flooded the core in violent pulses, dragging fragments through her skull with each one: a child's hand on rain-streaked glass, Nolan laughing with a chipped tooth, a man's voice saying her name like he owned it.

Then static.

Her knees buckled. Kane caught her before she hit the floor.

"Leia." His arm locked around her waist. Heat soaked through his torn coat. Blood. The sharp scent of it cut straight through the electric air. "Look at me."

She clawed at his sleeve. "Nolan."

"I know."

"He's in the network." Her vision struggled to focus. Beneath the translucent floor, cables pulsed like veins. "I can hear him."

A child's voice crackled from the speakers.

*Leia. Don't let it finish.*

Nolan's voice. Thin. Distorted. Unmistakable.

Kane pulled her back as blue symbols ignited under their feet. The symbols spun faster, clicking into a pattern that made her implant burn behind her right eye.

TERMINATION PROTOCOL: RESUMING.

"No," Kane muttered.

The word came from somewhere deep. He fired twice at the nearest projector.