"Hands off the case, street rat."
The suppressor kisses the back of my skull and my fingers freeze around the black key.
I don't breathe. I don't blink. The vault air is still freezing from the cryo-locks I just cracked.
"Wow," I say. "You corporate boys really need to work on your pickup lines."
"Put it down," he says. His voice is low. Calm. Like he's done this a hundred times. "Slow. Fingers open. Now."
"Yeah, that's not happening." My palm is sweating around the key. It's humming. It's hot, way too hot for something that was on ice two seconds ago. "You want it, come take it."
"Mara Voss. Twenty-three. Unlicensed mark fixer. Three outstanding warrants." He leans in, just enough that I can smell leather and rain on his jacket. "You're not walking out with corporate property."
"You know my name, I don't know yours. That's rude."
"Rhys Calder. You're going to know it really well for the next five minutes. Then you're going to forget it in a cell."
I laugh before I can stop myself. It comes out shaky. "Calder? The hound they send when the debt's too big? Shit. I'm flattered."
"Put. It. Down."
The gun pushes harder. My knees hit the vault shelf. I'm cornered, back to a wall of dead servers, no exit except through him. He's big. Not just tall — built like he was made to kick down doors. Black tactical gear, no logo, no name. The kind of guy the corp pays to not exist on paper.
And I'm me. Hoodie with burned cuffs, ink still fresh on my left wrist, and a key that just started burning a hole through my skin.
"Okay, okay," I say. "You got me. Big scary hunter, little street rat. You win."
I open my fingers like I'm going to drop it.
I don't.
I slam my other hand down on the vault floor and drag my nail across the mark on my wrist. Hard.
"What are you—" he snaps.
Light rips out of my skin.
It's not pretty. It's street work. Cheap, illegal, itchy as hell. A jagged circle I inked myself with a needle and stolen ink flares white-hot. The air pops.
"Get back!" I shout.
A pulse of raw force throws him half a step. Not enough to drop him. Just enough.
He doesn't even stumble. He rolls his shoulder and is back in my face.
"Cute trick," he says. "My turn."
He moves. God, he moves fast.
His free hand grabs my wrist — the one with the mark — and twists. Pain shoots up my arm. He slams me sideways into the server rack. Metal bites my back.
"Let go of the key," he says, right against my ear. His breath is warm. Too close. "You don't know what it is."
"And you do?" I gasp. I try to knee him. He blocks it with his thigh like it's nothing. "You just follow orders, right? Good dog."
His eyes flash. Gray, cold, pissed. "You have no idea who you're stealing from."
"I know they took my brother!" I spit it out before I can swallow it. "So yeah, I'm stealing it."
That makes him pause. Just a fraction.
The key pulses again. Harder this time. It burns. Like it's trying to crawl into my bones.
"It's reacting to you," he mutters. "Shit. Drop it. Now."
"I can't!" The heat is up my arm now, crawling toward my elbow. My mark is screaming, flaring against it. Two different magics fighting over my skin. "It's stuck!"
"I said drop it!"
He tries to pry my fingers open. His hand is huge, hot, calloused. He wraps his whole palm around my fist and squeezes.
The second his skin touches mine over the key, everything goes wrong.
Light explodes between us. Not white. Black and red, like a vein splitting open.
We both scream.
It's not a sound. It's a rip. Like someone hooked a wire behind my sternum and yanked.
I feel him — actually feel him — slam into my chest. His heartbeat, his breath, his panic, all of it crashes into me at once.
"What did you do?" he roars. He lets go of the gun to clutch his chest. "What did you do to me?"
"Me? You grabbed me!" I'm on my knees now, I don't remember falling. My chest is on fire. My mark is burning black. His hand is still locked around mine and I can't let go. I literally can't. Our fingers are fused around that damn key by light. "Get off! Get off me!"
"I'm trying!" He yanks. I yank. The light just pulls tighter. A cord of pure heat snaps between our wrists, then sinks under our skin. "Stop moving!"
"You stop moving!"
We both freeze, panting. Forehead to forehead. His nose almost brushes mine. I can see the sweat on his lip, the scar cutting through his left eyebrow. I can feel his pulse hammering — no, wait.
That's my pulse.
No. That's his.
They're the same.
"Oh my god," I whisper. "Do you feel that?"
His eyes go wide. He gets it at the same second I do.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
One rhythm. Two bodies.
"No," he says. "No, no, no."