We step over the smoking remains of the medical bay door and straight into hell's waiting room.
Every screen in the facility has rebooted to the same image:
Our mating bite in 8K slow-motion. My blood on his tongue. His fangs buried in my throat. Gold text stamped across it:
UNSANCTIONED DEVOURER-CLASS BOND TERMINATION PROTOCOL ACTIVE COUNTDOWN: 72:00:00
The number burns above both our hearts now, synced.
Kade's grip on my hand tightens until bones creak.
"Seventy-two hours until the moon itself tries to rip us apart," he says, voice flat.
I laugh (high, wild, still tasting him).
"Then we kill it in seventy-one."
The bond floods me with his emotions: rage, terror, and something softer he's trying to choke.
He feels mine back: the same cocktail, plus eighteen years of practice smiling through agony.
We're a feedback loop of violence and want.
A squad of elite hunters rounds the corner (twelve wolves in matte-black exosuits, silver visors down).
Their leader raises a rifle the size of my torso.
"By order of the Mirror Court, stand down and—"
Kade moves so fast the air cracks.
Three seconds later all twelve are on the floor. Some breathing. Most not.
He didn't even drop my hand.
I whistle.
"Show-off."
He wipes blood off his mouth with the back of our joined hands.
"Keep up, glitch."
We run.
The bond sings between us (every step perfectly mirrored, every heartbeat synced).
We hit the lower hangars.
A single black stealth chopper waits, rotors already spinning.
Pilot's eyes widen when he sees us.
Kade rips the door off its hinges.
"Out."
The guy jumps without a word.
I vault into the co-pilot seat.
Kade takes the stick like he was born in it.
We lift off as the entire facility detonates beneath us (Bastian burning the evidence).
The moon fills the windshield, cracked and bleeding.
71:58:12
I reach over and lace our fingers on the yoke.
Seventy-two hours to murder a god.
Plenty of time.
Then the chopper's comm crackles.
A child's voice (hoarse, terrified).
"Help… please… they're coming…"
Static.
The bond goes arctic.
Kade's knuckles go white.
I'm already hacking the frequency with root access.
Coordinates flash across my vision.
Sub-Level 21. Experiment holding cells.
I look at Kade.
His jaw is stone.
"Turn us around."
He banks so hard the chopper screams.
"Thought you'd say that."
We dive back into the fire.