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"Don't you dare pass out on me." Kael's hand was clamped around my throat, his thumb jammed hard over the port behind my ear.
I couldn't breathe. I couldn't move. White noise was still screaming through my skull.
"Let go," I choked out. My knife was at his gut. "Let go or I gut you."
"Yeah? Try it." He didn't let go. He pressed harder. "You were seizing. You would've fried your own brain if I pulled out."
His face was too close. Too close. I could see sweat on his upper lip, see his pulse hammering in his neck. He smelled like ozone and blood.
And his hand was hot against my skin. Too hot. That port wasn't supposed to be touched. Not ever.
"You touched it," I hissed. "You touched the kill-switch."
"I saved your life. You're welcome."
I slammed my elbow into his ribs. Hard. He grunted but didn't let go. Instead he shoved me back against the bulkhead. Metal clanged behind my head.
"Stop fighting me for two seconds!" he snapped.
"You think you own me now? Because you jammed your fingers in my head?"
"I think you're going to have a stroke if you keep spiking like that." His eyes flicked down to the port. It was pulsing. I could feel it. A sick, blue-white throb under his thumb. "Breathe. Just breathe, damn it."
I hated that voice. That calm, bossy, doctor voice. Like I was a thing on his table.
"Get your hand off me," I said, low. "That's an order."
"You don't give orders. You take them. That's literally what you were built for."
That hit. That hit right in the center of my chest.
My knife hand twitched. The hard-coded drive surged — kill him, kill him, kill him — and the pain circuit fired at the same time. Agony lanced from the base of my skull down my spine. I gasped.
Kael saw it. His expression cracked.
"There it is," he whispered. "There's the leash."
"What did you do to me?" My voice broke. I hated that it broke.
He finally eased his thumb off the port, but he didn't step back. He kept me pinned with his body, one hand braced against the wall by my head. Forced proximity. I could feel the heat coming off him, the hard line of his forearm against my shoulder.
"What did I do?" He laughed, but there was nothing funny in it. "Zero, I made you."
"Bullshit."
"No. Not bullshit." His jaw tightened. He looked at me like it hurt to look at me. "Your bones, your nerves, that little bomb in your head that tells you to kill me? I wrote the code. I grew you in a tank. I made you this monster."
The words hung there. Heavy. Ugly.
"You're lying," I said. But my hand was shaking.
"I wish I was." He leaned in, his forehead almost touching mine. His breath hit my lips. "You were Project Zero. The perfect weapon. No fear, no hesitation. And to make sure you never hesitated, we put in pain. Constant pain. Until you obey."
"Turn it off," I snarled. "Turn it off right now."
"I can't. Not from out here." His fingers brushed the port again, lighter this time. I flinched. He didn't miss it. "But in here? We linked. You felt it, right? When I touched it, everything went white. That's the forbidden link. It's two-way now."
"So what? You can read my mind?"
"Worse." His mouth twisted. "I can feel what you feel. And you can feel me. And if I die, you—"
He stopped himself.
"I what?" I grabbed his shirt, yanking him closer. "I what if you die?"
"You die," he said quietly. "The link feeds back. Your nervous system is tied to mine now. You kill me, you fry yourself."
For a second I just stared at him. Then I laughed. A sharp, broken sound.
"Great. Perfect. So I'm stuck with you."
"Yeah. You're stuck with me." His eyes dropped to my mouth, then snapped back up. "And I'm stuck with a bio-weapon that wants to slit my throat every three seconds."
"Don't flatter yourself. It's every second."
"Cute." He pushed off the wall, finally giving me air. But only a foot. He reached into his pack and pulled something out. A thin black band. Metal. It hummed faintly. "So we need rules."
"I don't do rules."
"You do now." He held up the band. "This is a limiter. Syndicate tech. It caps the kill-drive. Dampens the pain. Without it, you'll tear us both apart the next time your programming spikes."
I eyed it. "And with it?"
"With it, you don't get to kill me unless I let you. And I get to make sure you don't stroke out every time you get angry."
"So it's a collar."
"It's a leash," he corrected. His voice went low, dominant, no room to argue. "And you're going to wear it. Because if you don't, the next pulse will put you on the floor and I will leave you there for the Syndicate to find. Your choice, Zero."
Power. That's what this was. He had it. I didn't. He knew exactly where to press.
I bared my teeth. "Put it on me and I will bite your hand off."
"Try." He stepped back in, crowding me again. Chest to chest. His heat bleeding into me through my thin suit. "But you want it off, that pain. I can see it. You've lived with it your whole life, haven't you? That buzzing behind your eyes. That ache in your teeth. You want it quiet. I can make it quiet."
He was right. God, he was right. The agony never stopped. Never. And right now, with his thumb near that port, it was finally, finally dimming.
I hated him for knowing that.
"Fine," I spat. "Put it on. But you touch me wrong and I break your wrist."
"Noted." His fingers were steady as he lifted the band to my neck. His knuckles brushed my jaw. Warm. Calloused. I sucked in a breath and hated myself for it. "Tilt your head."
"Don't tell me what to do."
"Tilt. Your. Head." He said it slow, eyes locked on mine. Daring me.
I tilted my head. Just a fraction. Just enough.
The metal was cold when it touched my skin. Then it clicked. A soft, terrible click.
A pulse shot through me. Not pain. The opposite. Silence. For the first time since I was decanted, the screaming in my nerves just... stopped.
My knees buckled. Kael caught me. One arm around my waist, hauling me up against him. His palm flat on my back, holding me steady.
"Hey. Hey, I've got you," he murmured, and his voice was rougher now, closer. "Breathe. That's it."
I was breathing against his neck. I could feel his pulse under my cheek. Fast. Too fast. He wasn't as calm as he pretended.
"You feel that?" he whispered. "Quiet, right?"
"Yeah," I whispered back. And I hated how small I sounded.
His hand tightened on my waist. Just for a second. His thumb pressed into my side through the suit. Possessive. Anchoring.
"Good. Now listen to me. That link goes both ways. You feel me, I feel you. So if you try to run—"
"I know. I die. You die. We're tragic." I pushed at his chest, but didn't push hard. Couldn't. The quiet was too good. "So what now, master?"
His eyes darkened at that word. "Don't call me that."
"Why not? You collared me."
"Because—" He cut himself off. His whole body went rigid. His head snapped toward the vent above us.
A faint, high-pitched whine. Getting louder.
No. No, no, no.
"Kael?" I said.
"Don't move," he breathed. His arm locked around me, pulling me deeper into the shadow of the bulkhead, his body covering mine. His mouth was at my ear. "Don't even blink."
The whine sharpened into a sweep. Red light sliced through the cracks in the vent, scanning, slow and methodical.
Thermal scanners.
Locked in. They were right on top of us.
Kael's hand slid from my waist to my mouth, covering it, his other hand still gripping the back of my neck over the limiter. His chest heaved against mine.
"They're sweeping the whole lower level," he whispered against my temple, his lips brushing my skin. "If that beam touches skin, we're lit up like—"
The red light paused. Right above our heads. It jittered. Then it started to descend, inch by inch, straight for my exposed ankle and—