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"Move. Now!" Kane’s voice cracked like a whip, his hand clamped around my wrist so hard I could feel the bone shudder.
He didn't wait for me to agree. He yanked me behind a rusted coolant tank just as a burst of plasma fire shredded the air where I’d been standing a second ago. The heat scorched the back of my neck, the smell of ozone and burnt metal filling my lungs.
"What the hell is happening?" I hissed, trying to wrench my arm away. He didn't budge. Instead, he shoved me harder against the vibrating metal of the tank, his chest pressing into mine.
"My family doesn't do warnings, Mara," he spat. His eyes were frantic, darting toward the perimeter. "They don't want the stabilizer back. They want the evidence gone. That means you, and it means me."
I froze. "What? You're the heir. You're the one who's supposed to be running this whole damn city."
Kane let out a sharp, jagged laugh that sounded more like a choke. He leaned in, his face inches from mine. I could smell the cold, clinical scent of the Upper District on him—expensive soap and something metallic. "The heir? I'm a prototype with a ticking clock in my chest. To them, I'm just a failed experiment that forgot to die."
He shifted, his grip on my wrist loosening only to slide up to my shoulder, pinning me there. The power dynamic had flipped in a heartbeat. He wasn't hunting me anymore; he was clinging to me like I was the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth. And then I felt it—the rhythmic, heavy thrumming coming from his chest. It wasn't just a heartbeat. It was a sync.
My own heart hammered against my ribs, mirroring his. Every time his pulse spiked, mine followed. It was a sickening, intimate tether.
"Stop looking at me like that," he muttered, though he didn't move away. His gaze dropped to my lips for a fraction of a second before snapping back to the corridor. "We have to move. If we get more than twenty feet apart, the contract triggers. We both drop dead in ten seconds. You want to test that?"
"I hate you," I whispered, though I didn't push him off.
"Get in line," he replied.
Another explosion rocked the floor. Dust rained down from the ceiling, coating us in a gray film. Kane grabbed my hand—not a polite hold, but a desperate, crushing grip—and hauled me toward the maintenance hatch.
"Wait! The stabilizer—"
"Forget the drug for five minutes!" he roared, swinging me around a corner just as a security drone drifted into view, its red ocular lens scanning the area.
We pressed ourselves into a narrow alcove, the space so tight I could feel the heat radiating off his body. My breath hitched. He was too close. I could feel the fabric of his tactical gear rubbing against my worn leather jacket, the friction sending a jolt of something dangerous through me.
Kane's breathing was ragged. He looked down at me, his expression a mess of rage and something that looked suspiciously like fear. He reached up, his thumb brushing a smear of grease off my cheek. The touch was unexpectedly light, a sharp contrast to the violence of the last hour.
"Why did you steal it?" he asked, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous vibration. "Nobody risks a Level 4 breach for a few credits."
"I didn't do it for credits," I snapped, leaning my head back against the wall. "There are kids—children the city erased from the records. They're dying, Kane. They're literally dissolving because your company decided their genetics weren't 'optimal' enough to keep alive."
He stiffened. His eyes darkened, and for a moment, the ruthless commander vanished. In his place was something broken. Something that recognized the same kind of erasure.
"You're a fool," he whispered, but his hand didn't leave my face. He leaned closer, his forehead almost touching mine. The tension was thick, a physical weight that made it hard to breathe. "You think you can save them? This city eats people like you for breakfast."
"Then I'll make sure I'm a bitter meal," I retorted, my voice shaking.
He stared at me for a long beat, his gaze searching mine. Then, he abruptly pulled away, the cold air rushing back between us. The spell broke.
"We're heading to the Slums," he said, his voice returning to that clipped, military tone. "The Lower Districts. If we can get to a black-market ripper-doc, I might be able to spoof the signal. But it's a death trap."
"It's my turf," I said, straightening my jacket. "I know every vent and crawlspace from Sector 9 to the Sinks."
"Good. Because we're being hunted by a Clean-Up squad," Kane said, checking his wrist comms. He stopped dead, his face going pale.
"What? What is it?"
He turned the screen toward me. It was a city-wide alert. A high-priority bounty. Not just for the stolen medicine, but for two names.
My name was there. And right below it, in bold, red letters: *KANE RUSK. STATUS: TERMINATED. RECOVERY OF BIOMETRIC CORE MANDATORY.*
"They didn't just send a squad," Kane whispered. "They put a price on our heads that'll bring every scavenger in the city crawling out of the sewers."
I looked at the screen, then at the man standing next to me—the man whose heart was currently beating in time with mine.
"We're not going to make it, are we?"
Kane grabbed my hand again, his fingers interlocking with mine in a grip that felt less like a prisoner and more like a pact.
"Maybe not," he said. "But I'm not dying until I find out who the hell programmed this heart to love a thief."
Before I could respond, a loud, metallic clang echoed from the end of the hallway. The hatch we had just come through was ripped off its hinges.
"Over here!" a voice screamed.
Kane yanked me toward the ventilation shaft, the only exit left. As we scrambled inside, the narrow metal tunnel pressing in on us from all sides, I felt a sudden, sharp jolt in my chest.
I gasped, clutching my heart.
"What?" Kane asked, his voice urgent.
I looked down at the small digital display embedded in the wristband he'd forced me to wear. The countdown hadn't stopped. In fact, the numbers were suddenly spinning faster, skipping seconds, accelerating toward zero.
"Kane," I whispered, my voice trembling. "The timer... it's jumping."
He looked at the display, and his eyes widened. "That's impossible. It only does that when—"
Suddenly, the sound of heavy boots thundered directly above us in the vent, and a grenade clattered down the shaft, landing exactly two feet in front of our faces.