Page 103 of Neon Flux

I pulled the Kistune jacket off his scorched body, shrugging off my piss-soaked one.

The other two stumbled back, horror plastered across their faces.

“What the fuck—” one of them choked out.

I grabbed the side of his face, so high on adrenaline that my Flux acted before I could think. It wasn’t as strong as before, but his flesh sizzled beneath my fingers as electricity etched into his tan skin.

“Tell your boss, I’ll work off whatever debt mom’s got. She’s out, you understand?”

He whimpered, and I dropped him. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, tasting metal and bile. My body ached, myribs screaming, but I ignored it. I stepped over him, and he ran—followed closely by the other.

For the first time I could remember, I didn’t feel hollow. Their fear gave me a power I’d never known before. And I knew I would do anything to feel it again.

CHAPTER 37

EON

The cell holding us was too dark, too quiet. The kind of quiet that didn’t mean safety, but danger—like something was lurking just past the edges of perception, waiting to pounce. My pulse was a drumbeat in my ears, my hands bound in my lap. The magnetic cuffs were tight. Too tight. I squeezed my fingers to move the blood around, to stop them from shaking. It had all gone wrong. Again.

I flicked a glance at Cy, crouched near the doorway, his posture loose but ready, even with his hands bound. Always ready. He hadn’t looked at me since we got holed up in this room, but I knew—knew—he was aware of every move I made.

A deep breath. Slow. I could handle this. I’d been in worse situations. I’d survived worse men. But the truth, the one I couldn’t push away no matter how hard I tried, was that this was different. The Kitsune weren’t just sleazy club patrons. They were an organized pack of criminals, and if we didn’t play this exactly right, we weren’t getting out.

I looked at Cy again and saw what he really was. A weapon, coiled tight and always ready to release. I hated to admit it, but he scared me. And this was the place that had created him.

Fear clawed its way up my throat. I swallowed it down, forcing myself to focus. There had to be a way out. I just needed to think.

Movement. Cy shifted, and I tensed on instinct, but he just sat back, kicking the remnants of our Vysors into the cell’s corner. Our jailers must’ve smashed them when they threw us in here. He stretched out his legs like we weren’t locked in a death trap. Like this was just another job, another night.

Like I wasn’t fucking terrified.

I hated him for that. Hated that he could sit there like none of this fazed him. Hated that I was looking at him and feeling something other than anger, something creeping too close to camaraderie.

Because the truth was, for all the shit he gave me—for all the ways he pushed and pulled—Cy had protected me. When things broke down, he’d pulled me behind him without thinking, like it was instinct. Like keeping me alive mattered.

It shouldn’t matter. Not to him.

But it did.

I exhaled slowly, my nerves steadying just a little. I wasn’t safe—not really—but…I wasn’t alone either.

He let out a long sigh and leaned against the concrete wall, eyes closed. “Settle in. We might be here for a while.”

I tried to ignore the lingering cold in my limbs. “Great,” I muttered. “Love being stuck in a death trap with you.”

Cy didn’t even open his eyes. “Yeah? You wanna try waltzing back out there, be my guest.”

I scowled but said nothing.

Silence settled between us, but it wasn’t comfortable. It was heavy, thick with everything neither of us wanted to say. My fingers twitched against my sleeves. I should’ve been focusing on getting us out, running through every possible angle in my head.But instead, my thoughts kept circling back to Cy. To him, telling me to run.

I needed to get my head on straight.

I looked at his hand. It had been wrapped poorly with a dirty cloth now soaked in blood, but it didn’t look like it was still bleeding. Still, he was injured—injured by a knife that had been meant for me.

“Doesn’t that hurt?” A dumb question. Of course it did.

“Always in pain, doll. What’s a little more?”