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CY

“ S o, are we gonna talk about what happened last night?” Maddox asked.

“No.” My nose was bandaged where the POM docs had reset it this morning.

“Three POM Security officers dead at RejuvaLife Pharmaceuticals, and you were nowhere to be found?”

“You telling me you left your little foursome to respond to that call?”

He didn’t answer. Just glared at me.

“I told you, this girl has you fucked up.”

“No woman has ever had me ‘fucked up.’ She’s just smart. and strong, and I let her get the jump on me.”

“Again,” Maddox added with no humor.

I shot him a look that only made my throbbing headache worse. “You wanna say something, or are you just here to repeat shit?”

“Yeah, I’ve got something to say.” He crossed his arms and scanned the holographic chaos on my terminal. “What the hell is going on with you, Cy?”

I ignored him. Three-dimensional movement patterns hovered in the air—Eon’s escape modeled frame by frame. The angle of her elbow when she hit me. The momentum behind the blow that broke my nose. It wasn’t clean. It wasn’t trained.

I traced her escape path with my finger—right up until the footage cut out when she remembered to shield herself. The movement pulled at my left shoulder, the implant there flaring with a dull throb that radiated down to my fingertips. I ignored it.

Three hours. Three hours of meticulous analysis, and I was no closer to understanding what the fuck had happened.

“Tactical assessment complete,” POM’s corporate assistant chimed in my ear. “Subject E-11749 demonstrates no formal combat training. Movement patterns indicate instinctive self-preservation responses consistent with street survival tactics.”

I nodded, eyes locked on the simulation of Eon’s strike—the clumsy pivot, the unbalanced transfer of weight. Not the calculated precision of someone with training. It was desperation. The animal instinct of someone who’d been running her whole life and had finally been cornered.

“Expand psychological profile based on interaction patterns,” I said, my voice flat.

New matrices bloomed across the workspace.

“Subject exhibits trauma markers consistent with abandonment psychology,” the AI continued. “High probability of instinctive disengagement as a primary self-preservation tactic.”

“She was looking for an exit from the moment she woke up,” I muttered, more to myself than the AI.

Maddox still hadn’t said a word behind me. If he wasn’t gonna say anything, neither was I.

I touched the bridge of my nose, pressing lightly against the swollen flesh. The bone had been reset, but I’d told the medical staff to leave the bruising. Each throb synchronized perfectly with the ache in my shoulder, twin pulses of pain keeping me grounded.

My hand froze as a discrepancy flickered across the data stream. I expanded a section of biometric readings—Eon’s heart rate earlier that morning. It wasn’t the frenzied rhythm typical of Vector-enhanced arousal. It was something else. Slower. Deeper.

Maddox grunted behind me. “We’ve gotta get ready to meet with Tex at 1300 hours.”

“What’s it look like I’m doing?”

“Bullshit,” he snapped, waving at the holos. “This isn’t about the case. What the hell is going on with you, Cy? You’re off your game, letting a target—”

“She’s not a target.” The words came out sharper than I intended, and tension coiled between us.

Maddox blinked, and I realized too late I’d given myself away.

“Oh, I see how it is,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Not a target, huh? Then what is she? A contractor? Your girlfriend?”

“Drop it,” I warned, but he didn’t. Maddox was like everyone else at POM—trained to spot any weakness and exploit it. It was in the handbook. I couldn’t even blame him. A distracted partner was a liability.

“Because from where I’m standing, she’s a loose end that’s going to get you killed, Cy. And if you can’t handle her—”

“I can handle her,” I ground out, shoving back from my desk. Pain spiked through my shoulder, but I refused to let it show. “She was pissed about Tanaka, all right? She found out the wrong way, and things got heated.”

“Cy.” Maddox pulled the back of my chair, forcing me to look at him “You’ve got a fucking broken nose you refused to let them fix properly.

If I hadn’t come by to check on you, that dampener would’ve fried your brain.

And now you’re pouring over her data, dissecting her biometric data like it’s a case file.

You’ve been at this since 7:00 a.m., reconstructing how she breathes in her sleep. This isn’t analysis. It’s obsession.”

I finally met his eyes. “Are you questioning my professional judgment?”

“I’m questioning what the hell happened to the cold-blooded bastard I’ve worked with for three years,” Maddox shot back. “The one who never gets emotionally compromised.”

“You want to see compromised?” I asked, my voice low.

I stood. My movements were fluid despite the stiffness in my shoulder. Holographic displays flickered as my Flux responded to the spike in my emotional state, blue light crawling beneath my skin.

“I’ve spent my entire career being the perfect corporate asset,” I said, stepping around the desk. “I’ve put bullets in skulls while looking people in the eye. Interrogated targets until they begged for death. And not once—not once—has anyone gotten the drop on me like she did. I want to know why.”

Maddox didn’t back down. “Tex is asking questions about your involvement with her. Wants to know if your judgment is compromised.”

“And what did you tell him?”

“Nothing. Yet.” Maddox narrowed his eyes. “But you’re making it really hard to cover for you.”

“I don’t need covering.”

“Then stop walking around with that busted nose like you’re hoping someone’ll say something so you’ve got an excuse to beat the shit out of them.” He gestured toward the holos. “And stop turning one night with a runner into whatever this is.”

My hand shot out, gripping his collar before he could react. The larger man tensed, but didn’t fight back.

For three heartbeats, we stayed frozen.

Then, as quickly as it came, the rage drained from my face. I released my partner and turned away, suddenly fascinated by the data flickering on my desk.

“Something happened,” I admitted quietly.

Maddox straightened his collar, watching me with newfound caution. “With her Flux?”

“With everything.” My voice had lost its edge, revealing an exhaustion that ran deeper than physical fatigue. “The way our Flux synchronized.” The way she looked at me after—like I was someone who mattered. “It wasn’t Vector-driven. This was…something else.”

“Never thought I’d be the one giving you this talk,” Maddox muttered. “But people like us? We don’t get that. We don’t get closeness. We don’t get gentleness. We get violence—and if we’re lucky, a swift death. That’s all we deserve.”

I ran my fingers over the bridge of my nose again. “You hate yourself that much, man?”

“We’re not good, Cy. We do the work that needs to be done, so others get to keep their hands clean.

They live in their fantasy world where courtrooms and ideals decide what’s right and wrong.

But it’s never been about that. It’s always been about power.

The powerful get what they want while the rest of us try to play by the rules.

But there is no justice, only violence.” His lips were flat, his eyes so bright I could see them even through his Vysor.

He wasn’t wrong. Violence had always been my constant—shaping every choice, every path. Even when she looked at me and I felt peace. Even when we aligned and, just for a moment, I thought maybe she saw the real me—and wouldn’t run.

But she had run. Of course she had.

I understood. It was the only response that made sense when vulnerability was a weakness. And in this city, weakness gets you killed—usually by someone like me.

Sparks flew from my hand and shorted out my terminal. I stood and pushed past Maddox. “I’ll be back in time for our meeting.”

“Where are you going?” he called after me.

“To beat the shit out of someone.”