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Jaxi straightened, one hundred percent intrigued now.

“The endgame isn’t control.” His gaze landed on her, locking her breath. “It’s addiction. To stimulation, to self.” His eyes settled on the face next to her. “They don’t need anyone to agree. They just need them to stop asking why.”

Jaxi’s hand rose, more instinct than choice.

Kildare caught it with a nod.

“Who’s behind this?” she asked.

He rested his palms on the glass table. “Something systemic. A network. It doesn’t post—it plants seeds. It doesn’t trend—it spreads. It knows exactly what it’s feeding, and where it hits deepest.”

She didn’t look away from him, but his words tightened her chest. Like a moment you realize you’ve been standing in something you didn’t see.

She halfway raised her hand again.

“Miss Juniper,” he acknowledged, sliding his hands off the table.

She focused on measuring her voice, darting a glance toward Kohl. “May I ask what my purpose is here?”

Kildare stepped to the edge of the table. “You’re not looped,” he said. “You haven’t been patterned. And with your gifts, that makes you rare.”

He gestured to the screen.

“These are three emotional payloads designed to work the same way theirs do—but with one difference.” He glanced at her. “They carry a shift.”

She watched closely, feeling now like she should’ve brought something to jot notes.

“We’re not trying to teach. We’re trying to redirect the loop—using the same tools: speed, pleasure, familiarity. But with a thread that tilts the trajectory, just enough to crack the algorithm.”

“And you want me to... rate them?”

“Sort of,” he said. “We want to see where they land in someone untouched. If they make something move. Tilt. Catch.”

She nodded, resisting the need to look back at Kohl.

“If none of them do—then we go back in. Make them sharper. Until they slide in as quiet as everything else already does. And leave something behind.”

His stare got pointed on her.

“You’re here to help us build the kind of message that rewires without permission.”

Chapter Eight

Kaos walked beside her, the meeting still echoing behind his ribs. She had watched all three payloads without flinching, named them ineffective with that maddening, soft finality of hers—like she was discussing the seasoning on a plate instead of psychological warfare. And Kildare had agreed. No, not just agreed—he’d been pleased.

She’d dismissed weeks of calibrated strategy, and the man leading it had smiled like he couldn’t wait to see what she’d do instead.

On top of this, she moved through the day like her body hadn’t been broken open in the night. Kaos ached to repeat it while Kohl burned to be chosen. And now, walking beside her, she moved like neither version of him had touched her. But she had touchedallof him.

Now, he was fixated on the lightness of her walk. Not flippant—unguarded and open. Like the weight of the meeting hadn’t settled in her bones yet.

She was talking again. Something about the light, the way the clouds moved like slow dancers. The strange, gold warmth bleeding through the chill. Her voice hopped frequencies like she couldn’t quite stay on one station—didn’t know she was supposed to be burdened.

He watched her through the corner of his gaze, looking for the shape of thisimmunityKildare mentioned. Whatever had spared her from the digital rot infection didn’t feel likeprotection with her. Closed off from the loop, yes—but maybe just as closed off from the thing that should’ve replaced it.

His eyes drifted past her shoulder, then lower. Just enough to imagine the shape of her. The warmth of her thighs, the way her shirt moved like it didn’t belong on her skin. Lust hit Kohl. Clean, violent. Human. It slammed into his core with no divine buffer—no sacred filtering, no spiritual absorption—just raw, biological fire surging through flesh made to feel it.

He exhaled too sharply, a sound caught between restraint and need. A low growl tore free.