For a second neither of them moved. Just breathing. Her chest rising fast, his slow. The air between them was tight, hot. He could see the sweat on her upper lip, the way her pulse hammered in her throat.
She was fierce. And trapped. And she knew it.
"Fine," she spat. "You want a deal? Here's my deal. I dig. I find out what you are, what they did to you. You do what I say, when I say it. You don't touch me. You don't question me. And when I'm done, we split."
"No."
"No?"
"My deal. You dig up my past. I keep you alive. You don't run. You don't sell me. You don't plug anything in without me saying so."
"Who the hell do you think you are—"
Kane moved.
One step. Just one. He was suddenly inside her guard, inside the pistol's range. She gasped and tried to back up but the wall was right there. He didn't grab the gun. He grabbed her wrist — the one with the scar — and turned it just enough that the muzzle pointed at the ceiling.
She was breathing hard now. Eyes wide. He was close enough to feel her heat, to see the flecks of gold in her brown eyes.
"Let go of me," she snarled, trying to yank free. She was strong, but he was stronger. Not even close.
"You want to work together? We do it right." With his other hand he pulled the mag-cuff off the dead ganger's belt. A cheap Imperial limiter. One cuff, one charge. He'd seen it before — somehow his hands just knew how it worked. "Give me your arm."
"Like hell—"
"Give it to me, Lyra. Or I walk. And you can try your luck with the next gang that comes through that door."
She glared at him. Hate and calculation flashing across her face. Then she shoved her left arm at him, hard.
"Fuck you," she said.
"Noted." He snapped the cuff around her wrist. It hissed, locked, lights blinking blue. Then he tapped his own forearm and the other end synced — a thin red line pulsing against his skin. Linked. "Proximity lock. You get more than fifty meters from me, it screams. You try to cut it, it screams. You try to sell me, I know."
"You collared me? You actually collared me?" Her voice went up, furious and a little cracked. She tugged at it. It didn't budge. "You alpha asshole—"
"You were gonna collar me," he said. "Don't pretend you weren't."
She opened her mouth. Closed it. Because he was right and they both knew it. Her pulse was still hammering, but now it was against the metal on her wrist.
"This is a dirty deal," she whispered.
"Yeah. But it's our dirty deal." He finally let go of her wrist. His fingers left a warm print on her skin. She didn't pull away right away. Just stared at where he'd touched her. "You dig my past. I keep you breathing. We clear?"
"We're clear," she muttered. She wouldn't look at him. "Asshole."
"Fierce girl," he said, and almost smiled. "Now show me what you can do."
She yanked her deck free, still pissed, still breathing hard. She knelt by the dead ganger's scanner, hands moving fast despite the cuff. Fingers flying over ports, wires sparking.
"This is a Gen-4 Imperial ping-box," she said, all business now, voice tight. "If I bridge it through my deck I can pull his ID file. Maybe your file. But it's old tech, it's loud—"
"Do it."
"You don't get it. If I hotwire this thing, every hunter with a receiver in five klicks will see the spike. Including whoever owns you."
"I get it. Do it anyway."
She looked up at him. For a second her anger slipped and he saw something else — fear, excitement, that crazy genius glint.
"You sure?"
"We need answers more than we need quiet."
"Okay. Your funeral." She took a breath, then slammed the connector in.
The deck screamed. The scanner screamed louder.
A pulse ripped out — invisible but Kane felt it in his teeth, in his bones. A high-frequency ping shooting straight up through the scrap and rust and into the sky.
Lyra's screen exploded with light. Too much light.
"Oh shit," she whispered. Her face went white. "Oh shit, Kane—"
The scanner wasn't just beeping anymore. It was howling.
SIGNAL BROADCAST: VOID-SIGNATURE CONFIRMED. LOCATION LOCKED.
And underneath, a new line burning red:
HUNTER VARGAS EN ROUTE. ETA 4 MINUTES.
Lyra's head snapped up, eyes huge, cuff blinking fast against her wrist as she stared at him —
"Kane, we just pinged every hunter in—"