Page 2 of Fractured Devotion (Tainted Souls #1)

The sky outside is the color of a faded bruise, all muted gray with veins of dull blue.

It hasn’t rained yet, but the air tastes like metal.

At Miramont Neuro Clinic, mornings begin in silence—no greeting chatter and no squeaky shoes, just the low hum of machines that pretend to understand the human mind better than we do.

My fingers tighten around the stylus.

“REM-phase instability,” I say aloud, more to myself than anyone else. Transitional volatility, not system error. Not my fault.

The door hisses open, and Mara steps in, holding a tablet to her chest like a shield. She’s petite, sharply dressed in slate-gray scrubs that match her precision-cut bob. Her eyes are the color of dried chamomile, always slightly tired but never missing a detail.

She’s my assistant, clinically brilliant and pathologically loyal, though she still flinches when I speak too sharply. “He convulsed at 03:22. Emergency override kicked in. He’s sedated now.”

“Vitals?” I ask.

“Stabilized. No regression. Memory integrity intact.”

I nod once. Cold, professional. “Document it under transitional dissonance. Strip the timestamp and attach it to the generic flag.”

She hesitates. “Doctor—”

“Do it.”

Her mouth flattens into a line, and she turns and exits. I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. The spike shouldn’t have happened. Not this deep into calibration.

I tap the stylus against the glass. The image of Subject 43’s neural map flickers, then clears. I force myself to look away.

Today is already cracked.

By 9:15 a.m., I’m back in my office. The vertical blinds slice sunlight like prison bars across the floor, and the scent of bleach clings to everything here, disinfectant over decay. A reminder.

“You always liked sterility,” a voice says.

I freeze.

Alec.

I turn slowly. He’s standing in the doorway, dressed in that clean, field-hardened way—hospital scrubs beneath a civilian jacket, with stubble like he forgot he was coming back. Or maybe hoped he wouldn’t have to.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I say.

“Director Sharpe pulled strings. I’m on provisional clearance for trauma analytics.”

His eyes move to the wall of awards behind me—the degrees, the framed commendations. None of them matter when he looks at me like that. Like I’m still the woman who used to memorize the lines in his palm instead of clinical maps.

“We haven’t spoken in seven years.”

He gives a slow nod. “And you still keep time like a metronome.”

“Why now?”

“Because I saw your name on a classified trial file and didn’t believe it. Because you said you’d never touch human testing. And because… you disappeared.”

I step around my desk with my hands folded. “People change.”

“You didn’t. Not really. You still disappear. Just into data instead of distance.”

I don’t answer. Instead, I walk to the door and place my palm flat against it.

“You’re dismissing me.”

“I’m directing traffic,” I correct.

A flicker of something crosses his face—pain, maybe, or the ghost of contempt. He lingers for a second longer like he wants to say something, maybe even reach for the thread that’s still between us. But he doesn’t. He just nods once, a subtle concession to a war neither of us is ready to name.

When the door hisses shut behind him, I stay frozen for a breath longer. Not because I miss him. Not even because I hate him. But because his presence was the first ripple in a day that already feels like it’s gathering a storm.

And storms, I’ve learned, never announce themselves twice.

It’s nearly noon, though the clinic’s filtered light makes it hard to tell. The morning dissolved into an endless loop of data, clipped conversations, and the little throb of something I can’t quite name.

Now, I’m expected to play politics. The board meeting looms like an obligatory performance—tight smiles, tight suits, and tighter secrets. The hours have slipped past in a sterile blur, my pulse too steady, my mind too sharp.

The clinical white corridors stretch ahead like a maze I’ve memorized and grown tired of escaping. Each turn leads to another glossy reflection of myself in glass—unbothered, unreadable. A lie I’m used to wearing.

My heels echo off polished tiles like a metronome, the only sound that reminds me I’m still grounded. I pass Mara on my way, but she doesn’t meet my eyes. The tension from earlier still clings to her shoulders, tucked beneath a professionalism that she doesn’t quite wear as tightly as I do.

Outside the boardroom, I pause, and my hand hovers over the biometric panel. Then, I steel my breath, smooth my expression, and step inside.

The boardroom is all glass and silent. There are ten chairs. Nine are filled. I take my seat just as Director Sharpe clears her throat and says, “Today, we welcome Mr. Kade Lorran, our new biomedical surveillance specialist.”

The man she introduced steps forward like he’s known this room all his life. He’s tall, sharp-boned, and composed. His eyes scan the room and stop briefly on mine. I don’t blink.

His voice is smooth and measured when he says, “Miramont’s security infrastructure will be restructured from the neural core out. Full biometric syncing, minimal external latency, zero leak points.”

I should admire the precision. But instead, my skin tightens.

He clicks the next slide. “Neural permission triggers can automate access hierarchies.”

My fingers twitch.

That phrase. It doesn’t exist outside classified forums. No one outside my team should know it.

His gaze meets mine again, calm and steady. Too steady.

Before I can speak, the lights flicker, and every screen goes black.

Gasps echo as someone mutters about a power cut.

“We’ll pause here,” Sharpe says tightly.

I rise before she finishes.

“Where are you going?” a board member calls.

“Diagnostics,” I say, already moving.

I don’t wait for permission or response.

The corridor narrows as I descend into the lower level, where the walls are steel, and the lights are colder. Past the restricted access door and down one final flight of stairs, the air shifts.

The monitoring chamber is cold, and fluorescent lights buzz overhead. I bypass the admin prompts and access the server stack directly. The system boots, then streams of code flash across the wall.

I spot one port. Open, unregistered, and hidden behind a proxy protocol.

Unauthorized.

I kill it.

Then I write a note, not in the official log, but in my private encryption drive. I will trace this.

Someone’s inside.

Night settles over the city like a heavy curtain, muffling the edges of everything. Back in my apartment, the cold feels deeper, like it seeped in through the walls while I wasn’t looking.

Everything remains in perfect order—monochrome and sterile, a reflection of how I compartmentalize what I can’t control. There’s nothing personal here. Nothing that whispers my name.

I sit by the window with my trauma journal. The leather is worn, but the binding is still perfect. Like me. Presentable on the outside.

I write about the blackout. About Alec. About Kade.

Something scratches at the back of my skull.

I flip back a few pages.

And right there, an entry I didn’t write.

It’s my handwriting, but not my tone. The words pulse with rage, and there, in the margin, circled three times: Celestia.

My lungs seize.

I haven’t heard that name aloud in decades.

I slam the journal shut. My fingers tremble.

And without meaning to, I hum the lullaby. Slowed and twisted.

Outside, the sky bleeds deeper into black.

Tomorrow, I will pretend this never happened.

But tonight, the fracture breathes.