Chapter 14 · The First Sin

“Get your hands off him!”

I didn’t just scream—I lunged. I slammed my palm into the doctor’s wrist, sending the needle clattering across the tile.

Calder didn’t even flinch. He looked like a discarded doll, chest barely moving, skin the color of wet ash. Those black veins from the backlash were still etched into his neck, pulsing with a faint, dying light. He’d taken it all. The catalyst, the surge, the soul-tearing friction of the bond. All just to rip me out of the line of fire.

“He’s clinically dead, Lena. Let it go,” the doctor muttered. He was already backing away, terrified of the look in my eyes.

“Shut up. Just shut the hell up!”

I dropped to my knees, my palms slapping against Calder’s chest. He was freezing. Not just cold—like the heat had been sucked out of his marrow. I grabbed the front of his tactical jacket and shook him hard. “Calder! Wake up! You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to be the martyr!”

Behind me, the hum of the servers shifted. Mira’s voice cracked through the comms, stripped of all her usual sarcasm. She sounded hollow. Broken.

“Lena… you need to see this.