Broken Circuit

The sound cut off sharply, followed by a burst of running feet. Doors opened. Voices rose through the stairwell.

Kade reached for the knife at his hip.

“Stay here,” he said.

Vera turned her head. In the blue light, her eyes caught silver. “You’ve known me long enough to stop saying that.”

“I’ve known you long enough to know you’ll follow me into a gunfight barefoot.”

“I have boots.”

“Vera.”

The name carried more than warning. It carried the instinct to shield her, the old reflex he had promised himself would not become another cage.

She felt it. Their bond made hiding impossible.

Her expression tightened. “Don’t make my choice for me.”

The stairwell erupted.

A man slammed into the railing below, striking metal hard enough to bend it. He wore a gray utility coat, one sleeve torn open at the shoulder. A woman followed him with jerking, unnatural speed. Her pupils were blown wide, iridescent circuitry crawling beneath the skin of her throat.

The man looked up.

For half a second, Kade saw only terror.

Then the woman seized his jaw and dragged his face toward hers.

“Don’t look away,” she whispered.

The bond between them flashed visible in the dark - a strand of pale light stretched from sternum to sternum, snapping taut whenever either moved. It was not like Kade’s link with Vera. His bond flowed, responsive and warm. This one pulled like wire through flesh.

The man clawed at her wrist. “Sable, stop.”

She smiled at him with blood on her teeth.

Kade knew that voice.

He knew the scar splitting the man’s left eyebrow. Knew the way he favored his right knee. Knew the old military shorthand tattooed behind his ear.

“Ryn,” Kade said.

The man’s head jerked toward him.

Recognition crossed his face, followed by something worse. “Ronin?”

Vera stepped beside Kade, her shoulder touching his. The contact steadied him, but the bond flared at the sight of Ryn and Sable, reacting to the pressure in the air.

Sable noticed.

Her gaze dropped to their joined hands. “You chose yours.”

Kade kept his knife low. “Put him down.”

“She chose me too.” Sable’s fingers tightened around Ryn’s throat. “They all choose, in the end. They just lie about when.”

Ryn’s face had gone gray. “Kade, get her away from me.”

Sable’s smile vanished.

The corridor lights burst overhead.

A wave of invisible force slammed through the building. Every bonded nerve in Kade’s body lit at once. His knees struck the floor. Vera gasped beside him, fingers crushing his.

For one violent instant, he felt everything she felt: the electric bite in her spine, the old terror of being reduced to a system, the desperate need to reach him through the pain.

Then the connection stuttered.

Not gone. Never gone.

But distorted.

Kade tasted metal. He heard Vera’s voice as if from the far end of a tunnel.

“Kade - look at me.”

He forced his eyes open.

Sable had released Ryn. The pair stood in the center of the corridor, their link blazing white between them. Doors slammed all along the tenement. People shouted below. A child began crying.

Ryn staggered toward the stairs.

Sable followed, not walking so much as being dragged by the bond.

Kade pushed himself upright. Vera caught his arm.

“You’re bleeding,” she said.

He looked down. A thin line of red ran from his nose to his mouth.

“So are you.”

She wiped beneath his nose with her thumb, then stared at the blood on her skin. The gesture was intimate enough to hurt.

“Suppression failure,” she said.

The words landed harder than the pulse.

Kade had heard rumors in the market: workers waking with another person’s memories, old military pairs tearing through clinics, dead links flickering back to life. He had dismissed half of it as Undercity panic and the rest as corporate misinformation.

But Ryn was alive.

Ryn, who had been listed among the program’s dead.

Vera looked toward the stairs. “We need to move.”

“Out?”

“After them.”

He caught her wrist. “You said we were building a quiet life.”

“I said we were trying.”

There it was - the boundary between them, thin as the corridor’s failing light. Kade wanted to drag her upstairs, lock the door, and keep the world outside. Vera wanted answers before the world decided what they were.

The bond carried the shape of both desires between them.

“You don’t know what that flare did to them,” he said.

“I know what it did to you.”

“I can handle it.”

“That isn’t the same as being safe.”

Her voice softened on the last word. His anger lost its footing.

Kade stared at her. “You’re afraid.”

“Yes.”

The answer came without armor.

She stepped closer, lowering her voice while the tenement shook with running feet. “I’m afraid that choosing you means I’ll keep asking you to survive things you never should have had to survive. I’m afraid I’ll become another person who calls it necessary.”

He had no ready reply. The bond warmed between them, not soothing, but honest.

Vera pressed her forehead to his. “So don’t disappear behind me. Don’t decide what I can bear. If we go, we go together.”

His thumb traced the inside of her wrist. “And if I tell you to run?”

“I’ll ask why.”

“And if there isn’t time?”

“Then trust me to choose.”

The words were a challenge. Also a plea.

Kade kissed her.

It was not gentle at first. It carried the leftover fear, the pain in his skull, the furious relief of finding her still beside him. Vera gripped the front of his shirt and pulled him closer. Her mouth softened under his, then opened. Heat moved through the bond, bright enough to make the corridor disappear.

When he drew back, her breath touched his lips.

“That was not an answer,” she whispered.

“It was a request for five more minutes.”

“You don’t have five.”

Below them, something exploded. Glass rained into the street. The crowd screamed.

Vera’s forehead remained against his for one last heartbeat. Then she reached for the compact shock baton at her belt.

“Come on, Ronin.”

He drew his knife and followed her down.

The market had become a river of bodies.

Neon signs strobed through steam from ruptured vents. Vendors overturned carts to make barricades. A drone spun in the air, broadcasting a corporate warning through static: REMAIN CALM. REPORT UNAUTHORIZED BOND ACTIVITY.

Nobody remained calm.

Ryn moved through the crowd like a man being pulled underwater. Sable stayed behind him, one hand hooked into the back of his coat. Every time he stumbled, she yanked him upright. Every time he tried to turn, she forced his face forward.

“Kade!” Vera shouted.

He saw the pair near a stall selling illegal memory chips. Ryn had one hand pressed to his temple. His other arm shook violently.

“Sable, listen to me,” Kade called. “The drug is failing. You need distance.”

Sable turned.

The bond between her and Ryn snapped bright enough to bleach the market white.

Ryn screamed.

Kade felt the scream through his own link. Vera recoiled, and he felt her pain as though it belonged to him. Their connection surged instinctively, trying to shield itself from the other pair’s feedback.

Sable lunged.

Kade shoved Vera aside and caught Sable’s wrist. The impact drove him into a stall. Hot broth splashed across his hand. Sable was stronger than she looked, her muscles jerking with borrowed force.

“Let go,” she hissed.

“Not until he’s clear.”

“You don’t understand.” Her face twisted. “He leaves, and I vanish.”

Behind her, Ryn collapsed to his knees.

Vera reached him, baton raised but not striking. “Ryn. Look at me.”

His eyes found hers. For an instant, the panic eased.

Then a corporate siren began to wail overhead.

Red security lights ignited along the market’s upper rails. A public screen flickered to life, displaying Kade’s face from old military footage.

UNSTABLE BOND EVENT. SUSPECT: KADE RONIN.

The crowd turned.

Kade saw the accusation spread before anyone spoke. A woman pulled her child behind her. A vendor lifted a length of pipe. Somewhere above, security shutters began descending over the exits.

Vera looked from the screen to him.

“They’re using you,” she said.

Sable tore free of Kade’s grip and seized Ryn by the collar. “They always need someone to blame.”

Ryn’s hand found hers - not tenderly, but desperately.

Kade could feel Vera’s decision forming through the bond.

“Vera,” he warned.

She met his eyes. “We get them out.”

The shutters slammed down.

The market became a trap, packed with frightened strangers and two failing bonds.

Kade reached for her hand again.

This time, she caught his first.

Together, they ran toward the attack.

End of chapter one. 19 more chapters in the full book.