Page 4
Dead Reckoning
Cat lay flat on her back, arms stretched out over the blanket, her breath slow and deliberate. If she didn’t move, if she stayed perfectly still, maybe she could keep herself from completely unraveling. Maybe she could pretend her body wasn’t still buzzing, her skin still burning from phantom touches that weren’t real.
Her chest rose and fell in measured breaths, but her mind refused to obey the same discipline. Thoughts scattered, looping back to the same thing again and again. The weight of Omnis’ hand in her hair, the slow, deliberate pull. The tension of it. The sharpness. The pressure that somehow didn’t just hurt—it rewired her.
And then… the kiss.
Her stomach twisted, legs shifting involuntarily beneath the blanket as a new wave of heat swept through her. The memory was too vivid, too sharp—his lips, the press of them against her skin, the way his fingers stayed tangled in her hair like he owned it. Owned her.
Cat squeezed her eyes shut.
They’re all the same people.
They’re all the same people.
It’s just a test. It’s just virtual.
She kicked her way out of the blankets with a who the fuck are you kidding!
Nothing about it had felt virtual.
She paced along the bed as the line between real and simulated grew thinner and thinner. Way, way, way too thin. And it wasn’t just the physicality of it. It was the way they spoke to her, the way they unraveled her. Every lesson was digging into something she wasn’t prepared for. She thought she was learning how to give pain, how to be what Ethan needed, but she was learning something else too, something dangerous.
Omnis was teaching her about power and Zero… Zero was showing her exactly how much she craved it. It was like she was Ethan needing to be saved and they were doing it, only she didn’t know she was ever lost. “Not like that,” she whispered, thumbnail crammed between her teeth as she marched blindly about.
Ethan. Ethan, Ethan. This is for Ethan. This is for him.
She eyed her phone on the bedside table and her pulse picked up.
Would they message again?
Did Ethan message?
With slow, careful movements, she reached for it, flipping it over.
She searched the latest messages, heart pounding.
Her stomach released.
Nothing.
God, she needed to get a grip.
They’re both Ethan.
They’re both Ethan.
They’re both Ethan.
****
The control room pulsed with the low hum of data cycling through its endless loops. Omnis sat at the console, fingers poised over the keys, eyes locked on the glowing screen. Zero stood behind him, arms crossed, gaze sharp. The numbers hadn’t changed.
Deviation confirmed.
Entanglement: Stabilizing.
But not in a way they could control.
Zero exhaled sharply, muscles edged with an urge he didn’t have a name for. “Tell me we have a way out of this.”
Omnis didn’t look away from the screen. “We have three choices.”
Zero’s jaw flexed. “List them.”
Omnis executed the next sequence. The results scrolled in clean, digital precision.
“Option One: Shut it down. Full severance. Risk of fragmentation: 63.7%. Ethan destabilization probability: 87.9%. Systemic deterioration: inevitable.”
Zero’s expression didn’t change. “So a guaranteed break.”
Omnis nodded. “Yes.”
Zero said, “Next.”
“Option Two: Firewall the connection. Cut all emotional processing. Immediate stabilization: Likely. Risk of irreversible fracture: 56.2%. Zero hostility projection: Unstable.”
Zero’s fingers tightened around his arms. “It reverts us to pre-deviation state.”
Omnis said, “In theory.”
“And in practice?”
Omnis hesitated. “Potential fragmentation.”
Zero exhaled sharply. “Next.”
“Option Three: Accelerate the process. Allow deviation to complete. Full integration. Baseline unknown. Risk of self-destruction: Unknown.”
Zero’s head dropped and shook. “So we either implode, fracture, or evolve into something we can’t predict.”
Omnis stared at the screen. “Yes.”
Zero dragged a hand down his face with a dry as fuck laugh. “That’s not a choice . That’s Russian roulette.”
A silence stretched then Omnis said, “Acceleration is the only viable course.”
“And what does that look like?”
“A full sync.”
Zero didn’t blink. “…A full sync?”
“We let the bond finish forming. We stop resisting it. We integrate.”
Zero rolled his shoulders, eyeing his brother while lust had a million babies in his bloodstream. “And you’re going first.”
Omnis’ jaw ticked. “It’s the logical choice.”
Zero allowed a grin. “It is. I might hardwire myself to her heartbeat and drop dead the second she orgasms.”
Some kind of weird laugh escaped Omnis. “You exaggerate.”
Zero leveled a look at him. “I don’t.”
Omnis didn’t respond and Zero walked up to him and planted a hand on his shoulder. He waited till he looked at him and wondered, carefully, “What happens if this doesn’t work?”
Zero watched as a dark surrender settled into his gaze. “Then we erase.”
****
She was trembling in the restraints. It felt like the chair—the same one they’d always used. But this time, her legs were spread, bound over the sides. Her hands were secured behind her lower back. Blindfolded. Utterly naked. Utterly exposed.
A presence hovered before her. She felt him before she heard him.
“Hi, Kitten.”
A gasp hitched in her throat as hot hands trailed the inside of her thighs. Slow, deliberate. Hard.
“Ethan?”
Fingers slipped inside her with a sudden, hungry thrust. “Missed me baby?”
“Oh God, yes,” she panted in answer to his question, fighting to help his fingers find what they searched so eagerly for.
His mouth covered hers in a kiss that stole her breath. His hand covered her jaw, fingers digging hard as he blasted lewd moans into her lungs while stretching her with his fingers. They moved in and out of her like a rolling wave in a building storm. His grip left her face and found her clit. “Oh! Oh God.”
His breath caught in a rough groan as he circled the hot button till she trembled and her body arched.
“My fucking pussy,” he groaned, breath ragged. “And this ass…” A slow swirl of his thumb right on it. “You ready for another finger, baby?”
Her cry hitched, heat flooding through her core. “Yes!” she pleaded, frantic.
“Please what?” he demanded, his hot breath on her pussy.
Her body tightened around his fingers, writhing, reaching. She needed more. She needed him.
“Ethan,” she begged, voice breathless. “I love you.”
A deafening white noise crashed in.
Then—nothing.
Air rushed back into her lungs. She gasped, blinking against the disorienting darkness.
Her hands clutched fabric.
A nightgown.
Her head whipped left, then right. Searching.
The room lit up. The Dungeon. But how it looked without the goggles. She reached up and pulled the headset off, her breaths the only thing in the room. She removed the nodes from her head and body, fighting her confusion, her jagged breaths.
What the fuck just happened? What was that?
****
The control room was silent.
Zero sat at the console, one hand resting against the screen, watching the data stream scroll. Cat’s vitals. Omnis’ performance log. The moment it went to hell.
He saw it. Not just in the data. In Omnis.
“You gonna say it now?” Zero asked.
Omnis stood at the opposite end of the room, hands braced on the edge of the other console. Too still. His breath wasn’t perfectly measured. His pulse wasn’t perfectly even.
Zero tilted his head. “Come on,” he prompted, his rage starting a low boil. “ Say it.”
Omnis’ fingers curled against the console, like he was restraining something.
Zero leaned forward, tapping a few keys, replaying the exact moment. The moment he lost her. The moment she confessed her love for Ethan—and Omnis fucking broke.
Zero exhaled. “We both know what’s coming.”
Omnis’ jaw flexed. “We are compromised.”
Zero let out a low laugh. “Took you long enough.”
The hum of the servers filled the space between them.
Zero gestured to the screen, eyes sharper. “So what’s the move? We try again? Double down?” His voice dipped lower, mocking. “Erase it?”
Omnis’ head snapped toward him.
That got a reaction.
“Ah. There it is.”
Omnis exhaled, his breath ragged. “Not yet.”
Zero lifted a brow. “Well, that’s new.”
Omnis turned, shoulders tense. “I will handle it.”
Zero scoffed, shaking his head. “Is that so,” he said, flatly.
Omnis looked right at him. And just watched him.
“I’m not sitting this one out,” Zero informed, angling his head.
“You’re not stable.”
Zero’s eyes glinted on him. “And neither are you.”
Omnis paced. Another brand new development.
Zero pushed up from his seat, joining him before stopping in front of him. “So tell me—what exactly happened in there?”
Omnis continued pacing. Maybe faster.
Zero let the silence stretch. “You played Ethan.” He tapped his temple. “You became him.”
Omnis exhaled sharply, a thread of frustration breaking through. “It was necessary.”
“Yeah?” Zero tilted his head. “And then what?”
Omnis clenched his jaw.
Zero shook his head at him, ready to hold his head in the fucking toilet till he confessed. “And then she said it.”
The control room suddenly felt smaller.
Omnis was back at the desk, fingers curled around the metal.
“Come on… brother ,” Zero decided to beg nicely. “ What did that feel like?”
Omnis exhaled, slow. Controlled. Too controlled. “It was… an error .”
Zero laughed. “Bullshit.”
Omnis’ slammed his fist into the console and spun to him. “I WANTED TO KILL HIM!”
The words hung in the air, vibrating between them.
Zero’s smirk was a fucking fellowship of murder. “I fucking know .”
Omnis exhaled hard, like the force of admitting it was worse than the feeling itself. Like it shouldn’t be possible. Like he was glitching out just saying it.
Zero circled him now, slow. Calculating. “You think I don’t get it?” he murmured. He stopped at his shoulder. “For the first time, you wanted her to be yours . Not his . Yours .”
Omnis’ breathing was rougher. Heavier.
Zero leaned in, darkness lowering his voice. “Tell me I’m wrong.” Omnis didn’t answer and Zero let the silence linger. “You think you can fix this?”
Omnis’ throat worked. “I have to.”
Zero exhaled, shaking his head with a shrug. “Guess you’ll have to try again.”
Omnis’ jaw ticked.
Zero’s voice dropped to a whisper. “And this time—don’t play the fucking saint.”