Chapter 22 · Sera Cuts the Line

Sera doesn't hear the scream until it's already halfway out of her throat.

The tracker lodged under her ribs burns like someone shoved a lit cigarette through her skin and kept pushing. She can feel it pulse every time her heart beats, sending little jolts of heat up into her lungs. Vesper designed it that way. They wanted their people to remember who owned them.

She's pressed against the wall outside the archive door, one hand clamped over the entry wound, the other still holding her gun. Julian's slumped ten feet away, black veins crawling up his neck like cracks in glass. He's not dead yet, but he's close. She can hear his breathing—shallow, uneven, wrong.

Footsteps echo from the lower corridor. Vesper reinforcements. They'll be here in two minutes, maybe less.

Sera looks down at the tracker site. The skin around it is red and swollen, and she can see the edge of the device pressing up from underneath like a dark coin. It's small. Vesper keeps them small so you can't get them out without proper tools.

She doesn't have proper tools.

She has a knife.

"Sera." Julian's voice is a rasp. "Don't."

"Shut up.