Far ahead, in the lion’s den of the system, a flickering sigil pulsed in an unnatural blue—a fingerprint he didn’t recognize, dancing like a challenge.
David gritted his teeth.Found you, asshole.And he surged forward.
Lena burstinto the server room, the heavy door slamming shut behind her with a metallic thud that echoed louder than her thoughts. Her shoes slipped on the polished floor, damp from the island’s sticky tropical air bleeding into every crevice of the building. Her breath came too quickly, too shallow, even for someone who’d sprinted across half the resort in the midday heat.
She scanned the room—towers of servers blinked and hummed like an army of indifferent eyes, walls lined with screens screeching lines of code she didn’t understand—until her eyes landed on the only thing that mattered.
David.
He kneeled by the racks, knees spread as though he were bracing against a hurricane.
She raced toward him, breath catching. “Half the guest doors aren’t unlocking. Phones are down. We have a wedding party threatening to leave—and that’s before we even tell them the air conditioning is down in Zone C. What can I do to help?”
No answer. Not even a twitch of recognition. His tablet lay on the floor, fingertips just touching it, its light flickering incoherently, like it too was panicking. But David… he wasn’t moving. His fingers twitched spastically now and then, and his eyes stared ahead, wide and glassy, like he was watching something behind reality. Blood dripped from his nose.
“David?” Her voice cracked.
She dropped to her knees beside him, her palms slapping the cold tile—then freezing as they slid in something wet.
Her gaze snapped to the thin trail of red beneath his nose. Her stomach clenched as ice slithered up her spine and squeezed.
She knew what this was. He was in the network. In deep. Alone. Without alerting anyone.
God, no.
Her brain scrambled, pinwheeling. What if he didn’t come back this time? What if no one pulled him out and he burned himself out? What if he ended up lying in a hospital bed, mind blank and gone, crazy hair and wild eyes like the psychics who’d gone too far?
“Dammit, David…” Her voice shook now, whisper-thin. “You aren’t supposed to do this without someone beside you.”
Still nothing. His lips trembled, lashes fluttering like he was dreaming—and not the good kind. Dreaming of corrupted code and system failures. Of being eaten alive from the inside out by haunted circuits.
She blinked through the hot sting in her eyes. This wasn’t fair. He didn’t always understand limits—not his, not anyone else’s—but he never meant to be reckless with hearts. Not whenhe’d started trusting her with his. Not when she’d started to believe someone would show up for her.
And now… his body was an empty shell.
Something jolted within her—a raw current of emotion she couldn’t label. Fear, frustration, affection, fury. All tangled together like a live wire with frayed ends. Somewhere behind the feelings, an instinct whispered.Do something.
“Hey,” she brushed her fingers along his cheek. It was damp, burning beneath the chill of sweat. “Hey, Genius. Whatcha doing in there? Burning yourself stupid?” His skin was cold and clammy—too cold, like his body was prioritizing saving his brain over his extremities.
She didn’t expect a response, so when he spoke—in a voice so hoarse it sounded ripped from his chest—she froze.
“Can’t… stop…” the words came jagged, each syllable like splinters. “Too far in—if I let go…”
His hands spasmed again. His head lolled forward before jerking back upright, eyes screwed shut like he was in agony. His entire body radiated strain, like a machine running on redline.
Lena’s heart thundered, rattling against shards of panic. He was slipping away by the second, and she had no damn idea how to save him.
So she did the only thing she could think of. She grabbed his slack hand, lacing her fingers with his.
His palm was scorching, and his skin buzzed with static, tripping her pulse the moment their fingers locked. The heat wasn’t just temperature—it was pressure. Energy. Vibration. Like his consciousness was a trapped signal trying to punch through interference.
Backlash hit.
A jolt snapped through her limbs, not painful but all-consuming—like the swirl of ocean surf yanking her off her feet. Images flashed behind her eyes: streams of alien code, awall of blue fire, faces flickering in and out of focus. Anger. Pain. Confusion. A system in collapse—and in the center, David. Alone.
No.
Not alone. She wouldn’t let him go.
