Chapter 1

The street bucked beneath them.

A blue-white crack split the pavement. Power lines screamed overhead, spitting sparks into the smoke. Across the block, a six-story apartment building groaned as its glowing foundation grid tore itself apart. Windows burst one after another.

Nora drove her knee into Elias's thigh.

He caught it.

Of course he did.

"Still trying to arrest me?" His breath brushed her cheek, hot and sharp with blood. "Even while the district is collapsing?"

"You're the reason it's collapsing."

"No. I'm the reason it hasn't collapsed yet."

He twisted her wrist until the silver warden seal on her glove lit up. Pain shot up her arm.

Nora hissed. "Let go."

"Drop the binding cuffs."

"Not happening."

"Then watch four hundred people die."

Another section of the street folded inward. A bus tipped sideways, its wheels spinning above the broken road. People screamed behind the barricades. The sound punched through Nora's skull.

Her comm bead crackled.

"Warden Kane, report," Commander Vale barked. "Do not engage the outlaw. Repeat, do not engage. The council wants Vey alive. Let the grid consume the block if it must."

Nora stared at Elias.

He heard it too. His mouth pulled into a humorless smile.

"There it is," he said. "Your order."

"Shut up."

"They just told you to leave everyone here."

"I said shut up."

"You going to obey?"

Nora slammed her forehead into his.

His grip loosened.

She ripped her wrist free and drove the metal edge of her glove into his ribs. He staggered back, but he didn't fall. The outlaw had already stolen three council vaults, burned two grid stations, and vanished from every prison cell built to hold him.

He was also bleeding through his black shirt.

Not a little.

A dark stain spread beneath his left ribs, pulsing with a dull red glow.

Nora raised her hand. The warden seal flared.

"On your knees, Vey. Now."

"You really don't listen."

"I heard you. I just don't care."

"That red light under my ribs?" He backed toward the sagging apartment entrance. "That's the anchor. The grid is feeding through me. If you cuff me, it loses its regulator. Then this entire block folds into the lower channels."

Nora glanced at the building. A child pressed both hands to a third-floor window. Behind him, a woman pounded on the glass.

"You're lying."

"You can scan me."

"The council scan marked you as a hostile conduit."

"Your council marked me as a monster because the truth was inconvenient."

"You killed a grid engineer."

"I pulled him out of a memory furnace. He didn't make it. That isn't the same thing."

The building gave another violent lurch.

Nora's boots slid across loose stone. Elias reached for her, but she slapped his hand away.

"Don't touch me."

"Fine. Stand there and die with your principles."

He turned toward the apartment.

Nora caught the back of his coat. "Where are you going?"

"Inside."

"You can't stabilize a block from inside a collapsing channel."

"I can if I reach the heartline."

"The heartline is six floors down."

"Then keep up."

He pulled her through the broken entrance before she could decide whether to stop him.

The lobby floor had split down the middle. A red glow crawled through the cracks like veins under glass. Every few feet, the walls flashed with stolen images—faces, names, birthdays, pieces of conversations. The grid was chewing through memories and spitting them back wrong.

A man stumbled past Nora, clutching his head.

"Where's my daughter?" he shouted. "I had a daughter. I—what was her name?"

"Move!" Nora yelled. "Get outside! Follow the blue marks!"

"I don't know where outside is!"

Nora drew her warding blade and carved a sharp line across the wall. Blue light snapped into place, pointing toward the exit.

"Follow the line! Don't look at the red cracks!"

The man stared at the glowing mark, then ran.

Elias watched her for half a second.

"You always this bossy?"

"You always talk this much when you're bleeding?"

"Only around armed women."

"Keep flirting and I'll make the bleeding worse."

His eyes dropped to her mouth.

It lasted less than a second.

Still, she saw it.

His hand tightened at his side. Her pulse kicked hard against the glove he had held a moment ago. Ridiculous. She was chasing a wanted criminal through a dying building, and somehow she noticed the exact warmth of his skin.

"Try it," he said quietly.

The floor cracked between them.

Nora jumped back. Elias caught her waist and hauled her against his chest before she dropped into the glowing gap.

His coat scraped her knuckles. His heart hammered beneath the blood-soaked shirt. Fast. Too fast.

"Put me down," she said.

"You prefer falling?"

"I prefer not being handled."

"Then stop stepping on broken floors."

"You dragged me in here."

"And I just saved you."

"You don't get credit for fixing your own mistake."

His fingers stayed at her waist for one beat too long.

Then he set her down.

The red light beneath his ribs surged.

Elias folded forward with a rough gasp.

Nora caught his shoulder. "What was that?"

"Nothing."

"That wasn't nothing."

"You worried about me now?"

"I need you alive until I understand what you're doing."

"Sure. Tell yourself that."

He shoved away from her and pushed open the stairwell door.

The stairs had become a twisting tunnel of steel and broken concrete. Red symbols crawled over the steps. Nora recognized the pattern from council training. Memory drain. Forced extraction. Someone had activated a purge sequence below the block.

"This isn't a failure," she said.

Elias looked back. "No. It's an attack."

"The council said the grid malfunctioned."

"The council lies when the truth costs too much."

"You say that every time you burn one of their stations."

"And yet you keep finding out I'm right."

A bolt of white energy ripped through the stairwell.

Elias grabbed Nora and shoved her beneath the landing. The blast tore through the railing above them. Hot metal clattered down the stairs.

Nora's back hit his chest. His arm locked across her middle. His mouth was close to her ear.

"Don't move," he whispered.

"You're not in charge."

"Right now, I am."

Boots thundered overhead.

Wardens.

Nora saw the silver insignia through the smoke. Three armored figures descended with grid rifles raised.

"Kane!" one shouted. "Step away from Vey!"

Elias's grip tightened. "Tell them to lower the rifles."

"They won't."

"Then tell them the truth."

"Which truth? That you're using your cursed heart to keep the building standing?"

"That would be a good start."

The lead warden leaned over the landing. "Nora, move away from him. The council has authorized lethal force."

Nora looked at the rifle aimed straight at Elias's head.

"He can stabilize the heartline," she called. "If you fire, everyone below dies."

"The order is clear."

"So is the building. Look around."

"He's contaminating you."

Elias lowered his voice. "There. That's the word they use when you stop obeying."

Nora elbowed him in the ribs.

He grunted. "You could've warned me."

"You could've shut up."

She snapped her blade toward the ceiling. Blue lines burst from the metal and wrapped around the stairwell. The wardens' rifles sparked and died.

"Kane!" the lead warden roared.

"Tell Commander Vale I found the source," Nora said. "Then tell her to evacuate the block."

"You're protecting a fugitive."

"I'm preventing a mass casualty."

"You're under review."

"Put it on my file."

The stairwell shuddered.

Elias grabbed Nora's hand and pulled her down the next flight.

"You just turned on your own people," he said.

"I disabled their weapons. There's a difference."

"Not to the council."

"I don't need a lecture from you."

"You need something. Your hand is shaking."

Nora yanked free. "It's not."

He caught her fingers before she could hide them. His thumb pressed against her knuckles. Warm skin. Steady pressure.

"It is."

"Let go."

"Say please."