Chapter 19 · Resonance Kill

"Don't move, Lex. Your hand is holding my knife."

Cael's voice came out of my mouth.

My fingers tightened around the blade pressed against the underside of his jaw. Or mine. That was the problem. The body in front of me wore my face, my jacket, and my blood on its knuckles. I was standing behind my own eyes, trapped somewhere behind Cael's skull, looking through his vision while he drove my body like stolen machinery.

A patrol scanner shrieked above us.

"You don't get to give me orders while you're wearing my skin," I snapped.

"I'm not wearing anything. You are."

The scanner beam cut across the alley. Cael moved my body before I could argue. My shoulder slammed into a steel service door. His palm locked around my throat, not hard enough to crush, just enough to make the point.

He had my body. I had his knife. Neither of us had control.

The beam slid closer.

"If it tags us, the patrol dumps both nervous systems," Cael said through my lips. "So stop fighting me."

"You started this."

"You hacked the admin gate."

"You shoved your mind into mine."

"You shoved mine into yours."

The scanner clicked.