Chapter 13 · The Heir Wakes Up Mad

The heir's words hung in the air like smoke. Your father opened the gate. Then he ran.

Kai's chest burned. Not from the mark. From something colder.

Downstairs, metal shrieked. Vera was buying him time he didn't deserve.

"Move." Kai shifted the heir's weight across his shoulders. The guy was light. Too light. Bones under skin and not much else. "We talk when we're out."

"You don't get it." The heir's voice scraped. "He left us all to die. Everyone in the lab. Everyone who trusted—"

"I said move."

Kai kicked open the service door and hit the back stairwell. Narrow. No windows. His boots echoed on concrete and the mark in his chest pulsed with every step, hot and sick and alive. He didn't want to think about what the heir had said. Didn't want to picture his dad's face in a place like this, deciding who lived and who got locked in chains.

Three flights down, Vera's blade rang out again. Closer. Kai turned the corner and almost ran into her.

She was bleeding. Left shoulder, shallow cut through the jacket.