Corrosive.
World-ending.
They never let me go.
They just put me on a longer leash and told me it was a horizon.
“You lying, sanctimonious fucking—” I choke off the rest of the sentence as my breath comes apart in my chest.
My vision tunnels.
My hands curl into claws.
The jalshagar stirs hard and sharp behind my ribs, not feral, not hungry, just incandescent with a rage that feels old enough to be geological.
They engineered me.
Conditioned me.
Punished mercy out of my bones.
Then parked me on top of a buried Reaper-era asset like a watchdog and called it rehabilitation.
My control cracks like ice under a thermal shock.
The room tilts.
I shove back from the terminal so hard my chair slams into the wall behind me and shatters, plastic and metal exploding outward in a useless, satisfying burst.
“Tur.”
Her voice hits me from the doorway.
I don’t turn.
I can’t.
If I turn, I am going to tear something apart that I can’t unbreak.
“Tur,” Kimberly says again, sharper now.
I brace both hands on the console, my shoulders heaving.
“They never let me go,” I rasp.
“What.”
“They never let me go,” I repeat, louder, uglier. “This whole life. This whole city. My job. My cover. All of it. Containment.”
I hear her footsteps.
Fast.
Close.
Her arms lock around my torso from behind, tight and unyielding, her cheek pressing between my shoulder blades.
“Hey,” she says fiercely. “Hey. You’re here. You’re with me. Stay.”
