Chapter 37 · Level Zero: The Final Glitch

"Give me the Root key, Cael, or I swear I’ll rip it out of your head."

His hand closed around my throat before I finished the sentence.

Not hard enough to crush. Just hard enough to remind me he could.

My back hit the black glass wall of the server chamber. The impact rattled my teeth. Cael stood inches away, one arm braced beside my head, the other locked under my jaw. His face had gone still in that dangerous way of his.

The red warning lights painted his cheekbones. They also painted the blood running from his temple.

"You’re threatening me while I’m holding your life in my hand?" he asked.

"You’ve been doing that for weeks. I’m bored now."

His thumb pressed under my chin. His breath touched my mouth, warm and sharp with metal from the cut on his lip.

The Root chamber shook around us. Every cable in the walls pulsed white, then violet. The City System had stopped pretending it was stable.