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"Hands flat on the wall."
I didn't move. The woman at the end of the corridor held her gun like she'd done this a hundred times. Clean grip. Barrel steady. Her eyes tracked every breath I took.
"You Guild?" I asked.
"Inspector Mira Vance. Hands. Wall. Now."
"I'm bleeding."
"Then bleed faster." She took three steps forward. Her boots didn't make a sound. "What did you summon in there?"
Behind me, Garrick was still pressed against the doorframe, staring at the mark on my wrist like it might explode. The crowd noise from the Pit had dropped to a hiss of whispers. Someone was going to talk. Someone always did.
"A dog," I said. "Big one."
"Don't lie to me, kid." Mira stopped ten feet out. The gun didn't waver. "I saw the tracker flare. That mark on your arm lit up every alarm from here to the Guild tower. You bonded something on the blacklist."
My ribs screamed when I straightened. The leg wasn't much better. "Blacklist's a long list."
"Voidlings are at the top." Her voice dropped. Cold. Certain. "Anyone who pacts with one gets put down. No trial. No appeal. You've got about thirty seconds to tell me why I shouldn't do it right here."
Garrick finally found his voice. "Mira, wait—"
"Shut up, Garrick." She didn't look at him. "This isn't Pit business. This is containment."
"He's just a kid."
"He's a threat."
I watched her finger. It wasn't on the trigger yet. That was something. "You want to shoot me in front of fifty witnesses?"
"I want you on your knees with your hands locked behind your head," Mira said. "After that, we'll see."
The floor was still sticky with blood from the fight. Cray's. Mine. I didn't kneel. "What if I say no?"
"Then I drop you, burn the body, and file it as self-defense." She tilted her head. "Your call."
Garrick stepped between us. Slowly. Hands up. "Mira, listen—"
"Get out of the way."
"You can't just execute him."
"He bonded a Voidling, Garrick. That's not a debate. That's protocol." Mira's jaw tightened. "How long have you known?"
"I didn't—"
"How long?"
Garrick's shoulders sagged. "Tonight. First time he summoned it was in that fight."
She looked at me again. The gun stayed level. "Where'd you find it?"
I could feel the thing inside me. Coiled up somewhere under my ribs. Waiting. Hungry. "Sealed ruin. East docks. Three days ago."
"Which ruin?"
"The one with the red door."
Mira's expression didn't change, but something flickered behind her eyes. Recognition. Maybe fear. "That site's been quarantined for two hundred years."
"Door was open."
"No it wasn't."
"Then I guess someone forgot to lock it." I took a step sideways. Testing. "Look, I didn't know what it was. I just needed—"
"Don't move." The gun snapped up. Center mass. "I'm not asking again."
My hands were shaking. From the fight, from the blood loss, from the thing in my chest that wanted to come out and play. "You shoot me, it'll come out anyway."
"Then I'll kill it too."
"You can't." The words came out before I could stop them. "You don't have the firepower."
Mira's eyes narrowed. "Try me."
Behind her, the crowd was leaking out of the Pit. Voices rising. Someone shouted about getting Rook. Someone else was already on a comm, probably calling it in. I had maybe two minutes before this turned into a massacre.
"Mira." Garrick's voice was quiet. Steady. "Let him go."
"No."
"You kill him here, you'll start a war. Half the Pit fighters are bonded. You think they're going to let Guild enforcers walk in and start executing people?"
"They're not bonded to Voidlings."
"They don't know that. All they'll see is you putting a bullet in a kid who just won his first fight." Garrick moved closer to her. "You want a riot? Because that's how you get one."
Mira didn't blink. "Then I'll put it down as a Voidling outbreak. Justify the response."
"You'll justify a bloodbath."
"Better than letting it spread."
I was almost to the side door. Another three steps and I could run. The leg wouldn't hold, but I could try. I could—
Mira's gun swung toward me. "Stop."
I stopped.
"Turn around."
I turned.
She was five feet away now. Close enough that I could see the scratches on her gun, the gray flecks in her green eyes, the way her pulse jumped in her throat. She wasn't scared. Just focused. Locked in.
"Show me your wrist," she said.
I held it up. The mark was still glowing. Faint, but visible. Geometric lines that twisted into something that hurt to look at.
Mira stared at it for three long seconds. Then she swore under her breath. "That's not a standard tracker. That's a resonance lock."
"What's that mean?"
"It means you're not just bonded. You're linked." She looked up at me. "How much HP did it take?"
"Forty percent."
"Every time you summon?"
"Yeah."
She swore again. "You're feeding it your life force. In six months you'll be dead."
"Then you don't need to shoot me."
"I'm not doing you a favor, kid. I'm stopping an outbreak before it happens." Mira's finger moved to the trigger. "Last chance. Get on your knees."
The thing in my chest stirred. I felt its teeth scrape against the inside of my ribs. It wanted out. It wanted to show her what it could do.
I thought about Garrick. The way he'd looked at me after the fight. Scared, yeah, but not disgusted. Not ready to run.
I thought about the ruin. The red door. The voice that had whispered my name in the dark.
I thought about the way Mira's hand shook. Just a tremor. Just for a second.
"You had a brother," I said.
Mira froze.
"Shut up."
"He died in the quarantine zone. East docks. Six years ago."
Her face went white. "How do you—"
"The Voidling knows." I could feel it crawling up my throat. "It remembers him."
"That's not possible."
"He called your name before he died." The voice that came out of my mouth wasn't mine anymore. Deeper. Layered. Wrong. "He said, 'Tell Mira I'm sorry.'"
Mira's gun dropped half an inch. Her breath came short and fast. "Caleb?"
"He tried to fight it," I said. Not me. The thing. "He lasted three minutes. Longer than most."
She raised the gun again. Her hand was shaking hard now. "Shut your mouth."
"He thought about you at the end."
"I'll kill you."
"You already did." I took a step forward. "You signed the order that sealed the ruin. You locked him in there with the rest of them."
Mira's finger tightened on the trigger.
Garrick lunged. He hit her arm just as the shot went off. The bullet punched through the wall three inches from my head. I didn't flinch. Couldn't. The thing in my chest had wrapped itself around my spine and I couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't do anything but stand there and watch Mira fight Garrick for the gun.
She won. Of course she did. Two seconds and she had him on his knees with the barrel pressed against his temple.
"Don't," I said. My voice. Mine again.
Mira looked at me. Her eyes were wet. "Give me one reason."
"Because he's not part of this."
"Neither was Caleb."
"I know."
She dragged Garrick to his feet and shoved him toward the side door. "Get out."
"Mira—"
"Get out or I'll shoot you both."
Garrick looked at me. I nodded. He left.
Now it was just the two of us. The gun. The thing in my chest. The mark on my wrist that pulsed in time with my heartbeat.
Mira wiped her face with her free hand. "How do I know you're not lying?"
"You don't."
"How do I know it's not just using his memory to manipulate me?"
"You don't."
She closed the distance. Pressed the barrel against my sternum. Right over the thing's teeth. "Give me a reason not to pull this trigger."
I looked down at her. She was shorter than I'd thought. Smaller. But the gun didn't waver and her eyes didn't blink.
"Because you want to know why they really killed the Voidlings," I said. "And I'm the only one who can tell you."
Mira stared at me for five long seconds.
Then she stepped back. Holstered the gun. Pulled out a pair of cuffs.
"You're coming with me," she said.
"Where?"
"Somewhere we can talk without an audience." She grabbed my wrist. The marked one. The cuff clicked shut and something flared hot beneath my skin. I hissed. She didn't let go. "Those are resonance cuffs. They'll suppress your bond for the next six hours. If you try to summon, they'll burn through your wrist and sever the link permanently."
"That'll kill me."
"Then don't try to summon." She snapped the other cuff on her own wrist. "Now we're both stuck. You run, I drag you. I shoot you, the cuffs stay locked and I'm chained to a corpse."
"You're insane."
"I'm thorough." Mira pulled me toward the side door. "Move."
I moved.
We made it three steps before the main door exploded inward.
Rook Chainbreaker stood in the opening. Seven feet of bonded muscle and black steel armor. His contract marks ran from his jaw to his collarbone, glowing red in the dim light. Behind him, six fighters. All armed. All looking at me like I'd just insulted their mothers.
"Heard you had a rat problem, Inspector," Rook said. His voice sounded like grinding stone. "Thought I'd help exterminate it."
Mira's free hand went to her gun. "This is Guild business, Rook. Walk away."
"This is Pit business. Kid fought in my arena. That makes him mine." Rook's eyes fixed on me. "Heard you summoned something interesting, runt. Want to show me?"
I didn't answer. Couldn't. The cuffs were burning and the thing in my chest was screaming and Mira's pulse was hammering against the metal chain that bound us together.
Rook smiled. "No? Then I'll just take your head and find out myself."
He reached for his weapon.
Mira raised her gun.
I opened my mouth to say something—anything—and the voice that came out wasn't mine.
It was Caleb's.
"Mira," it whispered. "Run."