For a second, Aiden thought it was going to crush Kael's throat before it ever let go.
Then the pressure vanished.
Not gently more like a fist releasing all at once.
The collar's light snapped inward, sucked into itself, and the disks Taro had planted around it flared like a chain of miniature suns. The old substation consoles screamed as the surge ripped through the improvised circuit.
Aiden barely had time to blink before the far wall erupted in sparks.
The air filled with the smell of hot metal and burnt insulation.
"Down!" Taro shouted, slamming his weight on a lever.
The hum died.
Silence followed so abruptly it made Aiden's ears ring.
Kael went limp against the plate, chin dropping, breath turning thin and uneven.
Aiden's hand flew to his throat instinctively, as if he could hold him open by will alone.
"Kael," he said. "Hey—look at me."
Nothing.
Taro was already there, fingers pressed to the side of Kael's neck, eyes narrowed in concentration. He didn't speak for two full heartbeats.
Aiden hated those heartbeats more than anything he'd ever heard.
"He's alive," Taro said finally, voice clipped. "Pulse is there. Rapid. He's just… crashed."
Lysa, by the door, let out a breath she'd been holding and immediately replaced it with tension.
"Don't celebrate," she said. "If the collar cut out like that, someone upstairs is going to notice."
Taro nudged the charred remains of the device with his boot. The metal looked dead. Not deactivated dead.
"It didn't 'cut out,'" he said. "It blew. If the Department has any kind of monitoring, they'll read it as a violent failure."
Aiden swallowed.
"Can they trace where it happened?"
"Not with a clean GPS ping," Taro said. "But they'll narrow sectors. They'll pull old nodes, check which parts of the grid lost micro‑signal. And if they have agents with brains, they'll guess why we chose a place like this."
Lysa's eyes flicked to Aiden.
"And who do we know with brains and a personal reason to chase you?" she asked.
Aiden didn't answer. He didn't need to.
Kael's lashes fluttered. A faint crackle jumped across his fingers, then died like a spark starved of air.
Aiden leaned closer.
"Kael," he said, quieter. "Breathe. Just breathe."
Kael's eyes opened to slits.
"You're… hovering," he rasped.
Relief hit Aiden so hard it made his throat tight.
"You're awake," he said.
"Regrettably," Kael muttered. "My whole body feels like it was… turned inside out."
"That's normal," Taro said, which did not sound reassuring. "Pain core discharge. Suppression residue. Adrenaline crash. You'll shake for a while."
Kael tried to lift his hand. It trembled violently.
"Free," he whispered, staring at his own fingers as if he expected the collar to reappear. "I can… feel it. Like… there's no wall."
Lysa stepped closer, studying the raw ring around his neck.
"No wall, no leash," she said. "Good. But it also means you're loud now. Your magic has been bottled for too long. Don't let it spill."
Kael's mouth twitched.
"Sure," he said. "I'll just politely ask my nervous system not to panic."
Aiden helped him sit up, careful not to touch the burned skin at his throat. Kael winced anyway, shoulders tense, as if even air was sharp.
"You did it," Aiden said.
Kael looked at him for a long second.
"Yeah," he said. "We did."
The words were small, but they carried something dangerous belonging.
Taro was already yanking cables out of his rig. He moved like someone who'd done this a hundred times and knew that pride got people killed.
"We don't stay," he said. "Not to rest, not to talk, not to have an emotional moment about freedom. Pack what matters."
"Kael can barely sit upright," Aiden said.
"Then you carry him," Taro replied without looking up. "Or you both die here. Pick one."
Lysa nodded once.
"We split," she said. "Two routes, maximum confusion. If they find this station, I want it empty and useless."
Aiden looked down at Kael.
Kael's eyes were bright in a way they hadn't been when the collar had controlled his every breath. Bright and unsteady.
"I can walk," Kael said stubbornly.
"You can wobble," Aiden corrected. "There's a difference."
Kael's lips parted an argument ready but he stopped when a tremor ran through his arms.
He hated that his body betrayed him.
Aiden could see it in his jaw.
"Lean on me," Aiden said. "Just until your legs remember they work."
Kael hesitated a fraction of a second too long.
Then he shifted closer, letting Aiden take some of his weight.
"Don't get used to it," Kael murmured.
"Wasn't planning to," Aiden lied.
They left the substation through a maintenance corridor that smelled of rust and old rainwater, the kind of place where the city's forgotten bones met its living nerves.
Lysa walked ahead, silent signals guiding the others: stop, listen, move.
Taro went with a smaller group, carrying the most valuable equipment and the least emotional attachment. Before he disappeared into another tunnel, he glanced at Kael once.
"If you live through the next twenty‑four hours," Taro said, "come find me. I want to see how your output behaves without the leash."
Kael lifted a trembling hand in something that might have been a salute.
"If I'm alive," he said, "I'll consider it."
Then Taro was gone.
Lysa slowed long enough to speak without turning.
"Aiden," she said. "This is where things change."
Aiden looked up, alert despite the exhaustion crawling into his muscles.
"They already changed," he said.
"No," Lysa replied. "Before, you were useful because you knew the Order's roads. Now you're useful because you're their story."
Kael made a sound that might have been a laugh, but it didn't reach his eyes.
"The story where I hypnotized the Director's son," he said.
"Exactly," Lysa said. "They'll sell it hard because it protects them. If your betrayal is a spell, then their system remains pure. Your family will cling to that version, too. It keeps the Lioren name intact."
Aiden felt a cold, familiar anger rise quiet, controlled, dangerous.
"They're turning my choice into an illness," he said.
Kael glanced at him.
"You want them to believe you chose it?" he asked.
"Yes," Aiden said. "I want them to know I saw what we do and still walked away."
Kael's expression softened, then hardened again as a jolt of pain crossed his face.
"That's brave," he said. "And also… not strategic."
Lysa nodded.
"Finally," she said. "Someone here understands survival."
Aiden didn't argue. He could admit when someone was right.
He just didn't know if he could live with it.
A few tunnels later, they reached a narrow grate that opened to a thin view of the surface night sky, a slice of tower lights, and the faint shimmer of patrol drones passing like slow, watchful insects.
Lysa held up two fingers.
Freeze.
They waited, pressed into shadow.
Kael's breath hitched once.
Aiden felt his shoulder stiffen.
"What is it?" Aiden whispered.
Kael swallowed.
"It's… quiet up there," he said. "Like… the air isn't buzzing at me anymore."
Aiden realized what he meant.
No collar hum. No suppression rhythm. No constant reminder of control.
Just normal city noise distant, indifferent.
Kael's eyes closed briefly.
"I didn't realize how much it was always there," he said.
Aiden's chest tightened.
"I did," he said, and surprised himself with the honesty. "I just kept pretending it was necessary."
The drone passed. The light swept over the grate and moved on.
Lysa gestured forward.
They moved again.
They stopped in a dead service room lined with broken pipes and old signage. Lysa used it as a temporary breathing point, checking their route against a small, battered map.
Aiden helped Kael sit on a low platform.
Kael immediately pressed a hand to his throat.
"It hurts," he admitted, voice rough. "But it's… mine."
Aiden crouched beside him.
"Can you control it?" he asked quietly. "The power."
Kael looked at his own hands.
A tiny spark snapped between his fingers unbidden, nervous.
"I can hold it," he said. "I think. But it's like—" he searched for the word, "—like a storm stuck in a room that's suddenly open."
Lysa glanced back.
"No big displays," she said. "Not here. Not now. Orion will have sensors keyed to unusual output."
At the mention of the task force, Aiden felt the shape of Mara's mind like a shadow at the edge of his thoughts methodical, relentless, too familiar.
Kael watched Aiden's face.
"She's coming," Kael said softly.
Aiden didn't ask how he knew. Kael was learning to read him the same way Aiden had once read threat reports.
"Yes," Aiden said. "She'll come."
Kael's eyes narrowed.
"And if she finds us," he said, "do you hesitate?"
Aiden met his gaze.
"No," he said. "Not again."
The answer didn't feel heroic.
It felt like a door closing.
Kael's mouth twitched, something like approval crossing his face before pain stole it.
"Good," he said. "Because I can't wear another collar. Not from them."
Aiden's fingers hovered near the mark on Kael's throat, careful not to touch.
"You won't," he said.
Lysa snapped her map shut.
"We move," she said. "Next stop is a safer nest. After that, we decide what kind of people we're going to be with this freedom."
Kael pushed himself up, swaying.
Aiden steadied him without a word.
As they stepped back into the tunnel, Kael glanced upward once, toward the invisible world where screens carried lies about what he could do and what Aiden had become.
"Let them think I manipulated you," Kael murmured. "If it keeps you alive long enough to make your point."
Aiden walked beside him, eyes forward.
"Maybe," he said.
But inside, the thought burned steady:
If they were going to rewrite him, then he'd have to become something loud enough that the city couldn't ignore the truth.
And now Kael's collar was gone.
So was the last excuse for staying quiet.