Kian's POV
The tracks weren't perfect.
Boot prints, half-smeared in dust. A faint drag mark, like someone's feet had been pulled. A smudge on a wall where a shoulder might've hit.
Nyra.
The name beat under my skin with every step.
The school shrank behind me as I followed the trail along the side road, past the cracked pavement and overgrown grass. The sky was turning that washed-out late afternoon color, the kind that made everything look tired.
I was tired too.
My chest still burned from whatever had just happened with those men and their van. My legs felt heavy. My veins felt… wrong. Too full. Too awake.
Every time my anger spiked, the blue light pulsed under my skin like a warning.
Don't think about that. Think about her.
A shoe scuff on the curb. A broken button. A faint smear of blood on the corner of a rusted dumpster.
I stopped.
My stomach flipped.
"Nyra…" I whispered, touching the smear. It was dry, just a thin dark line, but the sight of it made something in me tighten.
She bled because of you.
The thought hit hard and fast.
If I'd listened to her. If I'd gone home. If I hadn't let her stand between me and those men—
My hand curled into a fist. The air around me hummed for a second, the nearby streetlamp flickering even though it wasn't on yet.
"Not now," I hissed at myself. Or at the thing inside me. "Please. Not now."
I forced my eyes back to the trail.
The prints turned off the road and into an older industrial area, where the buildings were mostly warehouses and forgotten storage units. The kind of place no one really watched. The kind of place you could scream and no one would care.
Perfect place to hide something ugly.
Or someone.
The tracks led to a squat, gray building with boarded-up windows and a chain-link fence. A faded sign above the door read:
HARTLEY DISTRIBUTION CENTER – CLOSED
The gate was locked. The padlock was new.
I stared at it, breathing slowly.
"Okay," I muttered. "So you're not even trying to be subtle."
Normal people would turn around.
Normal people would call the police. Wait for backup. Tell adults. Do the smart thing.
But normal people didn't have veins that glowed when they got angry, and a girl out there who'd been born just to protect them.
I grabbed the fence and climbed.
The metal rattled under my fingers. Halfway up, one of the links snapped with a sharp ping, bending under my weight.
I froze.
I wasn't that heavy.
I looked at my hands.
The wire where my fingers gripped had warped, as if someone had squeezed it with a hot tool.
Blue light pulsed faintly under my skin.
Great, I thought. I'm a walking hazard sign.
I dropped the rest of the way down, landing harder than I meant to. My knees jolted. A dull ache flared up my legs.
The yard behind the fence was mostly empty. A few crates. A dumpster. The back door of the warehouse, metal and solid, with a keypad lock.
I approached slowly, checking for cameras.
There was one, above the door, aim fixed downward.
I stopped under it and stared up.
"Hi," I said flatly. "You've already tried to kidnap me once today, so I'm guessing you know who I am."
My heart hammered. My palms were damp. This was insane.
The camera's red light blinked at me, steady and indifferent.
No response.
"Okay," I muttered. "That's fine."
I put my hand on the keypad.
Cold metal met my fingertips.
"Please work," I whispered.
I didn't know how to control it. Didn't know what it even was. But earlier, when I'd been scared and angry, things had… broken. Time had stuttered. Men had flown backward.
Fear coiled in my stomach. Beneath it: something else.
Not fear.
Something sharp and hungry that wasn't entirely mine.
Let me, a voice murmured faintly in the back of my mind. Let me open what you cannot.
My fingers tightened on the keypad.
"I don't trust you," I whispered back.
The voice laughed, low and amused.
You trusted me when they tried to take you. You let me protect what is mine.
"You mean what's mine," I snapped under my breath.
A flicker of displeasure rolled through my nerves like a cold wind.
We will discuss that later.
The keypad sparked under my palm.
I jerked, but I didn't let go.
Blue light seeped out around my fingers, lines of it crawling into the gaps between the buttons. The metal creaked, heating, warping.
Then, with a sharp pop, the lock gave.
The door swung inward a few centimeters.
My heart thudded.
"I did that," I muttered, half horrified, half relieved.
We did that, the voice corrected gently. Do not forget me.
I pulled my hand away quickly and shoved the door open the rest of the way.
Inside, the air was colder.
The warehouse was dim, lit by flickering strips of fluorescent light. Rows of old metal shelves cast long shadows. Somewhere deeper inside, machines hummed softly.
I slipped in, letting the door close quietly behind me.
Every instinct screamed that this was wrong.
Too quiet. Too still.
"Nyra?" I whispered.
No answer.
A metal door stood at the far side, newer than everything else. A card reader blinked beside it. No window. No label. Just security and silence.
I started across the concrete floor, footsteps echoing slightly.
"You really shouldn't be here, kid."
The voice came from my left.
I spun.
A man stepped out from between two shelves. Not masked this time. No glasses. Brown hair, military cut. Plain clothes that shouldn't have looked threatening, but did.
His eyes were flat.
"I remember you," I said slowly. "You're the one who said you 'just wanted to talk.'"
He shrugged. "We still do. Well, the doctor does. I was more for the 'tranq him and drag him in' plan."
He glanced down at the faint cracks in the concrete near my feet, the ones that hadn't been there a second ago.
"Looks like I underestimated you."
My pulse sped up.
"Where is she?" I asked.
He tilted his head. "The girl? She's alive. For now. Very difficult, that one."
Something in his tone made my hand shake.
"Bring her here," I said. The blue in my veins brightened. "Now."
He laughed.
"Kian," he said, and hearing my name in his mouth felt wrong. "You don't give orders here. You don't even understand what you are."
"Then explain it to me," I snapped.
He sighed, as if bored.
"We will," he said. "Behind glass. Under observation. After you stop… misbehaving."
He drew something from his belt.
Not a gun.
A sleek, metal device with a needle at the end.
My lungs stuttered.
"Don't," I said.
He didn't answer. He just started walking toward me, steps measured, arm steady.
The concrete under my feet trembled.
The buzzing in my skull rose.
He hurt her, the not-voice whispered. He helped take her. He will help take you.
Rage slammed into me, sudden and raw.
"I said don't," I shouted.
The air thickened like wet cement.
He took another step.
Something in me snapped.
Blue exploded out of my skin, flooding my vision.
The lights overhead popped one by one, plunging the warehouse into a strobe of sparks and darkness. The shelves rattled. Metal screamed as bolts tore loose on their own.
The man's eyes widened. He lunged, swearing, driving the needle forward—
Time hiccuped.
The motion slowed, dragging, the needle inching through the air at a snail's pace. My own breathing sounded too loud in my ears.
You hesitate, the voice inside me said. I do not.
The world twisted.
The man was suddenly airborne, his limbs flailing as if caught by a giant invisible hand. He slammed sideways into a metal shelf with bone-cracking force. The entire unit toppled, crashing down in a wave of boxes and twisted steel.
I staggered back, choking on dust.
"Stop!" I yelled, throat raw. "I didn't mean—"
Everything froze.
Dust hung suspended in the air. A box paused mid-fall. A bolt that had been flying spun slowly inches from my face and then just… stayed there.
My heart hammered painfully against my ribs.
The only thing moving was the blue light pulsing under my skin.
This isn't right.
I lifted my hand slowly.
The bolt hung there, gleaming.
With a thought—not a word, not a gesture, just a stab of panic—I pushed it away.
It shot across the room like a bullet, embedding in the far wall with a shriek of metal on metal.
The shock of it knocked me back into myself.
Time lurched.
The boxes finished falling. Dust hit the ground. The shelves groaned and settled into a twisted mess.
The man lay half-buried, groaning weakly.
Alive.
Barely.
I stared at my hands, trembling.
"I'm a monster," I whispered.
No, the voice said, almost fond. You are mine.
Bootsteps slammed against the metal walkway above us.
"Sector three! What happened to the power?"
"Hurry, the boy is inside—"
Voices. Plural.
I spun, chest heaving.
I couldn't fight all of them.
I couldn't control… this.
But somewhere past that metal door—past the humming machines and the blinking card reader—Nyra was there.
Probably chained. Probably bleeding. Probably still trying to bite someone even with her last breath.
She was born to protect me.
I wasn't going to let her be the only one fighting.
I bolted for the door.
"Hey!" someone shouted from above. "Stop him!"
Gunshots barked.
Concrete chipped near my feet as I ran. A sharp sting sliced across my shoulder. I stumbled, then caught myself, hot wetness spreading under my shirt.
Pain flared.
The blue in my veins surged, reacting.
My vision blurred.
The card reader by the door beeped angrily as I slammed into it, palming it desperately.
Locked.
"Open!" I yelled, voice cracking. "Open, damn it!"
Nothing.
Behind me, men thundered down the stairs.
Hands almost grabbed my jacket.
Almost.
Something inside me slipped.
Fine, the voice in my head sighed. I'll do it.
Cold fire rushed from my spine into my arm. My palm slammed into the card reader. Blue light shot into it, flooding the circuits. The device popped, sparking violently.
The door blew inward under a pressure that wasn't physical.
I stumbled through as it crashed open, half-falling into a narrow, sterile hallway.
"Seal that section!" someone yelled. "Don't let him reach—"
The door behind me slammed shut on its own, crushing someone's fingers. Their scream cut off everything else.
My breath came in ragged gasps.
The hallway was lined with reinforced doors, tiny observation windows set into each one.
I staggered past the first. Empty.
The second. Empty.
The third.
I froze.
There she was.
Nyra.
Strapped to a metal chair by her wrists and ankles, head lolled to the side, a bruise darkening her cheek. Electrodes clung to her temples, wires trailing to a machine that hummed softly.
For a second, all the air left my lungs.
"Nyra," I whispered.
Her eyelids fluttered.
Slowly, like she was dragging herself up from somewhere deep, her gaze lifted to meet mine through the tiny window.
For the first time since I'd met her, she looked… small.
"Idiot," she mouthed.
A laugh-sob tore itself out of my chest.
Relief made my knees weak.
Then I saw the thin line of blood where a needle sat taped to her arm.
The blue in my veins went white-hot.
Someone grabbed my shoulder.
"Step away from the door, kid," a calm female voice said behind me. "Or I'll drop you right here."
I turned slowly.
A woman in a white coat stood there, tranquilizer gun raised, expression cool. Her glasses were cracked at the corner, like someone had tried to headbutt her recently.
"I'm Dr. Havel," she said. "I've been very patient up until now. Don't make me start carving answers out of you."
I looked from her.
To the needle in Nyra's arm.
To the fear hiding under the exhaustion in Nyra's eyes.
Something inside me snapped.
"You hurt her," I said, my voice almost calm. That was the scariest part. "You tied her up. You drugged her. You tried to take me. You keep calling us 'subjects' like we're not even people."
Dr. Havel's mouth twitched.
"I call you what you are," she said. "Resources. Data. Energy. There's enough power in your veins to rewrite physics. Leaving that in the hands of a scared teenager is irresponsible."
My fingers curled at my sides.
"So your solution," I said, "is to torture us?"
"Control," she corrected. "Study. Stabilize. If we can understand what you are, we might prevent the end of this world."
"And if I say no?" I asked.
She smiled, small and sharp.
"That's the thing, Kian," she said. "You don't actually get a choice."
She squeezed the trigger.
The tranquilizer dart sped toward me.
Time stuttered.
This time, I didn't fight it.
The world around me slowed again, but not all the way. I could still hear the hum of the machine, the drip of fluid into Nyra's vein, Dr. Havel's heartbeat thudding like a distant drum.
The dart crawled through the air, inches from my chest.
No, I thought.
It stopped.
Just… stopped.
Hovering there, a breath away from my shirt.
I looked at it.
My hand shook as I reached out and pinched it between my fingers.
Dr. Havel's eyes widened.
"That's not possible," she said.
I felt the voice inside me smile.
Everything is possible for us.
I snapped the dart in half.
Sedative dripped onto the floor.
Dr. Havel took a slow step back, calculating, eyes flicking between my glowing veins and the door behind me.
"Careful," she said softly. "The more you use it, the more it uses you."
She lifted a small device in her other hand and pressed a button.
Electricity crackled along the ceiling. Alarms shrieked. Somewhere down the hall, a heavy lock slammed into place.
Nyra flinched as the machine beside her whined, turning up.
Her back arched in the chair as current jolted through her.
"Stop it!" I roared.
The hallway shook.
Lights exploded above us like fragile suns.
The walls themselves seemed to bend inward for a heartbeat, then snap outward again.
Dr. Havel staggered, thrown against the opposite wall. The device flew from her hand, shattering on the floor.
The straps holding Nyra to the chair tore one by one with loud snaps. The electrodes popped off her skin. The needle in her arm yanked free as the metal stand toppled.
She slumped forward, gasping.
Blue-white light poured out of my skin, so bright it turned everything colorless.
Kian.
Her voice wasn't in my ears this time.
It was in my head.
Or maybe I was imagining it.
Either way, panic and relief and awe slammed through me in the same breath.
I stepped forward.
The reinforced door between us didn't stand a chance.
It flew off its hinges like paper.