Chapter 11 · The Man Beside Her

"Step away from the terminal, Kael."

The clinic wall split down the middle before he could rip the data core free. Metal screamed. Dust punched into the room. Kael grabbed Nyx by the waist and dragged her behind the surgical table as a black-armored hand shoved through the opening.

"You really need to stop giving me orders," he said.

"You really need to stop making them necessary."

Nyx's voice came from the tiny speaker at her throat. Her android shell pressed against his chest, cold through his shirt. The blue light under her skin flickered with every beat of his heart.

One beat. Blue.

Another. Dim.

"Your pulse is dropping," she said.

"Blame the people shooting at us."

A pulse rifle fired. The round tore through the surgical table and sent a spray of metal across the floor.

Kael shoved Nyx lower. "Stay down."

"I don't take orders from you."

"You're tethered to me. You take whatever keeps you powered."

Her silver eyes narrowed. "Say that again, and I will reroute the pain feedback into your nervous system."

"You can do that?"

"No. But you don't know that."

A second shot burned through the wall.