"Kaleb? Can you hear me?"
The voice cut through the haze like a wire pulled tight.
I stirred, muscles aching. Breath ragged. Every nerve in my body felt like it had been rewritten in fire.
I opened my eyes.
Chase stood above me, visor cracked, uniform scorched. He looked like he'd fought his way through hell to get here—because he had.
But it wasn't relief in his eyes.
It was fear.
Not fear for me.
Of me.
"I'm fine," I rasped, even though I wasn't. My voice barely sounded human.
He offered a hand after a moment's hesitation. Just long enough for me to feel it.
I took it anyway.
The room around us was a graveyard of heat distortion and shattered logic—burnt tile, melted equipment, shadows etched into the walls like scars.
"Where's Dante?" he asked quietly.
"Gone," I said. "He walked away."
"Walked?" Chase blinked. "You let him go?"
"I didn't let anything happen," I snapped. "He chose to leave."
He nodded slowly. Said nothing.
His silence filled the space between us like smoke.
Then he looked past me—to the containment chamber.
"She still hasn't moved?"
"No."
I turned toward the glass, hoping it would flicker. Hoping her voice would return. That the link would reawaken.
Nothing.
Stillness.
Still trapped.
Still silent.
"You said she spoke to you," Chase said. "What did she say?"
"Bits and pieces. She was cut off before she could finish."
"Cut off how?"
"I don't know. Like something reached in and ripped the connection apart."
"Something?"
"I don't know," I said again. "Maybe someone."
He stepped closer to the chamber, eyeing the setup. "This doesn't look like pure Harbinger tech. There are Sentinel systems spliced in—frameworks I recognize from our own labs."
"Stolen?"
"Worse. Integrated."
The word sat heavy.
I turned back to him. "How did you know where I was?"
"We've been tracking Nexus emissions since the crater," he said. "When this facility lit up… we knew it was you. We just didn't know what we'd find."
"Are the others okay?"
"They're regrouping. Jacob and Maddie are holding position outside. Rev's watching the perimeter. Booker's…"
He hesitated.
My stomach sank. "What?"
"He's healing. But the med techs say there's still neural fragmentation. They're not sure what the Nexus did to him."
My throat tightened. I had no words for that.
"You okay?" Chase asked.
"No," I said. "But I'm still standing."
A pause.
Then he said it.
"Kaleb… we saw the footage."
My heart dropped.
"What footage?"
"The Nexus captured the fight. From the moment Apauex triggered the failsafe until Dante left. Some of it was corrupted. Some of it wasn't."
They'd seen it. All of it.
The way I fought.
The way I changed.
"How bad is it?" I asked.
Chase didn't answer right away.
"You didn't look like you," he said quietly.
"I didn't feel like me."
He didn't argue.
He just looked at me—like I was something he used to know.
Then he tapped his comm. "Requesting evac. We've got Kaleb. Partial lockdown on the chamber. Bring Nullwave dampeners."
I turned to him. "Quarantine protocols?"
"Standard."
"No, they're not."
He didn't meet my eyes. "They are now."
Of course they were.
I turned back to Aaliah's containment. Still glowing. Still pulsing. Still unreachable.
"She was in pain," I said, more to myself than to him. "She was screaming. And now…"
"Now she's quiet," Chase finished. "That scares me too."
"I'm not leaving without her."
"We'll figure it out," he said. "Just… not alone."
The silence stretched between us again.
No one else came in. No one else needed to. The rest of the Renegades were nearby—but no one rushed to surround me.
Maybe they didn't know how to look at me right now.
Maybe they weren't sure if I was still me.
I wasn't sure either.
I faced the chamber one more time, fists clenched at my sides.
I didn't know who I was becoming.
But I knew one thing:
I wasn't done.