Chapter 32 · Her Voice Is Still in the Wind

The feed is live.

Mom's face fills the control room screen, distorted through the storm signal like she's drowning in static. Her eyes are open. She's looking at something I can't see.

"Kai." Echo's hand is on my shoulder, pulling me back from the console. "Don't touch anything yet. We don't know what'll happen if you—"

I shove her off.

Steelhook's voice cuts through the noise, filtered through the rig speakers. He's still strapped into the neural interface up on the platform, cables running into his skull. "Ruin. Step away from that panel. That's an order."

I don't step away.

Because I can hear her now. Not through the speakers. Through the sand.

It's faint, like someone whispering from the other side of a wall, but it's her. The storm outside the shelter is screaming, a low roar that makes the floor vibrate, and underneath it—Mom. Saying my name.

I press my palms against the console. The metal's cold. My ability kicks in before I think it through, sand crawling up from the cracks in the floor, spiraling around my wrists.

"Kai, stop." That's Ashmark, limping over from where he collapsed after taking the chain round for me.