We ran through the industrial outskirts until the sirens faded behind us. Dawn hadn't broken yet, but the sky had that dead-blue color right before sunrise—the kind that made everything feel colder than it was.
The survivors dragged their half-broken bodies across cracked pavement.
Oil dripped. Blood dripped.
Every breath sounded like a goodbye.
"Keep moving," I said. "City's close."
But my voice was getting rougher.
My chest burned hotter.
The cracks on my skin were spreading like molten lightning.
Someone whispered behind me:
"Bro's gonna explode…"
Maybe.
Didn't matter.
We reached the edge of an abandoned freight yard—rusted crates, busted cranes, old machinery half-swallowed by weeds.
That's when I felt it.
A presence.
Not a sensor ping.
Not a soldier.
Something else.
Someone else.
The kid tugged my sleeve.
"K-17… someone's here."
Yeah.
I felt her before I saw her.
A breath of cold wind.
A razor of silence.
And then—
A figure stepped out from the shadow of a derailed train car.
A woman.
Hood up.
Clothes torn from running or fighting.
Eyes glowing faint amber in the dark like twin embers refusing to die.
And deadass—she carried herself like she'd slit ten throats before breakfast.
She aimed a stolen Dominion rifle at my face.
"Don't move," she said.
Her voice wasn't scared.
Wasn't shaking.
It hit like a blade—clean, sharp, practiced.
I raised a hand slightly. "If you're here to kill me, pick a line. There's a waitlist."
"It's not you I'm killing."
Her finger tightened on the trigger.
"I'm here for them."
The survivors froze.
My jaw hardened.
"Put the gun down."
She tilted her head, studying me with unsettling calm.
"You're not supposed to be talking," she said. "You're an android."
She narrowed her eyes.
"…but your heat signature is wrong. Your fractures are wrong. You shouldn't be glowing like that."
Yeah.
The cracks along my neck were pulsing again.
Too bright.
She kept the rifle leveled at my heart.
"You," she said quietly, "are not normal."
"Neither are you," I shot back.
She blinked once—slow, assessing, calculating.
Her expression didn't slip, but her heartbeat did.
I heard it spike.
She'd never seen an android look back at her like a person before.
"Who the hell are you?" I asked.
She lowered the hood.
And I swear the air shifted.
Her hair fell loose—dark, wild, wind-bitten.
Her face was sharp, high-boned, carved by running from death too many times.
But her eyes—
Damn.
Those eyes were war and fire and exhaustion wrapped in one.
"Name's Lira," she said. "Last surviving tactician from Dominion Command Unit Seven."
My whole squad went still.
A Dominion officer.
A traitor.
Or a threat.
But she wasn't done.
She stepped closer—slow, fearless, like she wasn't staring at a man half-made of molten cracks.
"I saw your little massacre back there," she said softly. "You broke their entire west lab in under five minutes."
Her eyes flicked down my cracked arms.
"Impressive," she whispered. "Terrifying… but impressive."
The heat inside me kicked hard—like the sun-core reacted to her voice.
"Why are you here?" I asked.
"To offer a deal."
She raised her chin.
"Let me join your escape group, and I'll get you past the outer city patrols."
I stared at her.
She stared back, unblinking.
"And what do you want in return?" I asked.
"A place to breathe," she said. "A chance to live."
Then her voice dropped to something darker.
"And the opportunity to put a bullet in General Voss if I ever get close enough."
The survivors stared wide-eyed.
She wasn't bluffing.
She wasn't scared of me.
She wasn't scared of the glowing fractures crawling up my throat.
She wasn't scared of the blood on my hands.
If anything…
she looked intrigued.
"You're dangerous," she said.
Her gaze drifted to my collarbone, where molten light pulsed.
"Too dangerous to walk alone."
I didn't realize I'd stepped closer until she didn't step back.
Our faces were inches apart.
"That supposed to be a compliment?" I asked.
She smirked.
Deadass smirked.
"No," she said. "It's a warning."
Her voice dropped low.
"If you lose control out here, you'll cook everyone following you. Including me."
The sun-core in my chest throbbed.
Hard.
Like it was reacting to her challenge.
I leaned in a little more.
"Then stay close," I murmured. "If I go off… you'll see it first."
Her breath hitched—barely.
A crack in the armor.
Then she clicked the safety off her rifle.
"Try not to die before I use you," she said.
"Same to you," I replied.
Behind us, the android kid whispered:
"Bro… the king just found trouble."
Maybe I did.
But trouble had eyes like wildfire.
And she was now walking beside me as we pushed deeper into the freight yard shadows—toward the city, the kingdom, the crown, and the sun waiting to eat me alive.