Chapter 2

"You'll pretend it never happened?"

Sloane laughs in my face.

She takes one step forward. The air in the whole room turns heavy. A Class-S operative flexing her aura. My ears pop.

"Who the hell do you think you are. Talking down to me."

She's not even hiding the jealousy anymore. It's all over her face.

"I'm not here to talk about your goddamn snacks." Her voice drops. "Answer me. Is Captain Vance in this room?"

My heart stops.

I glance at the sealed quantum isolation chamber. Just for a second. I can't help it.

"Yeah. That's what I thought."

Her face twists.

"Two days ago. North Ruins skirmish."

"Captain Vance took on three Class-A+ aberrations by himself. Solo. So the rest of the unit could pull back."

"Their venom burned right through his lungs."

"His psychic corruption spiked. He was one bad breath away from turning."

Her voice climbs. Sharp enough to make my teeth hurt.

"Medical was losing their minds. They had an Eden-Class Regen Pod prepped and ready."

"And what does he do?"

She stabs a finger at the isolation door.

"Walks past all of it. Wounds still open. Doesn't stop for meds. Doesn't stop for a bandage."

"Just grabs the purest Rift-Born crystal core we've pulled all year. And comes straight to your room."

Her lip curls.

"Three days."

"He hasn't stepped out that door in three days."

"So what is it, Ellie? What have you been doing to him in there?"

"A Class-SSS operative. Our best gun. Locked up with a leech like you."

The regulator chip at the back of my neck is burning now.

Sloane doesn't know.

She doesn't know the standard pods can't hold a Class-SSS meltdown. That the only place Kaiden survives when he gets this bad is inside my Anchor field.

That I'm the one who has to walk him back. Piece by piece. Until he stops seeing monsters every time he closes his eyes.

She doesn't know that crystal core isn't for him. It's for me. So I don't burn out keeping him alive.

"Sloane."

Marnie plants herself in front of me again. Her voice drops low.

"You have no idea what Ellie means to the Captain. Or to this base."

"Get out. Right now."

"Because when Vance walks out of that room, a court-martial's gonna be the least of your problems."

"Court-martial? Fine!"

Sloane's smiling now. Wide. Cracked.

"I'll take this parasite out first. Then I'll go take whatever's coming to me."

She's gone. Fully gone. In her head, I'm some slut who spread her legs to climb the ranks. Some snake who manipulated her way into Kaiden's bed and the Commander's good graces.

Her right hand comes up.

A ball of pitch-black annihilation energy starts spinning in her palm. Compressing. Faster. Faster.

I know that move. Everyone in the Bureau knows that move.

Class-S Particle Collapse. Her signature.

The second it forms, the alarms in the room max out.

"Warning. High-energy anomaly detected. Kinetic shielding overloaded."

I shoot to my feet. All the blood drains out of my face.

"Are you insane?! You can't fire that in the core sector! You'll take out half the building!"

Kaiden's in the middle of psychic reintegration. The most delicate phase. If a blast disrupts the Anchor field even for a second, he doesn't just die.

He turns into a monster with nothing left inside him.

"If it kills you, I'll bring this whole building down with you. Gladly."

Sloane's grinning. Her wrist flips.

That thing could blow a tank apart. And it's coming straight at my face.