Chapter 32 · The Man Who Knows My Name

"Don't touch me."

The words came out before I could think. The man holding me stumbled back into the broken console, caught himself with a sharp breath.

Blood ran from a cut beside his eyebrow. His coat was burned open at the shoulder. One arm still hung in the air like he'd forgotten how to pull it back.

Kellan made a noise from the floor. Not a word. Sounded like his lungs had given up.

The stranger looked at me.

Not at the blood on my shirt. Not at the burn crawling up my palm.

At me.

Like I'd just killed him.

"Who are you?"

His mouth opened. Nothing came out.

A siren wailed somewhere below the collapsed broadcast core. Red light pulsed through the smoke. The floor jumped under us. Chunks of ceiling dropped into the dead machinery.

The stranger reached for me again.

I raised the jagged edge of a metal panel between us.

He stopped so fast his hand shook in the air.

"Right. Sorry."

His voice was rough. Familiar, maybe.