Chapter 17 · The Zero Count

"Get off the ledge, Lex. Now." Cael's hand closed around the back of my jacket and hauled me three inches away from the drop.

"Take your hand off me."

"The street below is gone."

"Then stop standing behind me like a creep and tell me where to jump."

His grip tightened. Heat pressed through the thin fabric between his fingers and my shoulder. His other hand held a black pulse pistol aimed past my hip, down into the dead zone below.

The lower transit bridge had folded into a broken strip of metal. Three levels beneath us, the blackout swallowed the road, the buildings, and every light that had been there a second ago. No traffic. No ads. No city noise. Just a dark hole cutting through Kestrel's neon grid.

Then the first corp drone climbed out of it.

Its red scanner swept over the ledge.

Cael shoved me flat against the concrete wall. His chest hit mine hard enough to knock the air from my lungs.

"Don't move," he said.

"You keep saying that like I enjoy your orders."

"You enjoy surviving. Pick one."

The drone clicked.