Chapter 26 · Below Zero Hour

The red beam punched through Cain’s chest without breaking skin.

For one impossible second, Eve saw everything inside him—the ribs, the blackened branches of his lungs, the hard white cage of his heart. A thread of crimson energy wrapped around the organ and tightened.

Cain’s back arched.

A sound scraped out of him, low and strangled. His knees struck the metal floor, and the pistol he had used to destroy his command chip clattered away into the dark.

“Cain!”

Eve lunged for him.

The chamber answered with a violent pulse. Heat slammed into her face. Her boots left the floor, and she flew backward into the curved wall of the core chamber. Her shoulder hit first. Pain flashed white behind her eyes.

Above the central reactor, thousands of glass conduits glowed like veins beneath translucent skin. The Ashlight core had once been blue. Now it burned a furious red, each pulse synchronized with Cain’s failing heartbeat.

THREE PERCENT PURGE COMPLETE.

The voice did not come from any speaker. It vibrated through the bolts beneath Eve’s palms.

“Stop it!” she shouted. “You want me? Take me!”

“Eve.” Cain’s voice came thinly through clenched teeth. “Don’t—”

“Shut up.” She forced herself upright.