Nate’s POV
“Which one of you is going to teach me how to manage the recoil before I blow myself up?”
Callie’s voice rang with defiance, yet the sharp, crackling edge it had possessed only moments ago was rapidly fraying at the seams.
Standing this close to her, I didn’t need a diagnostic tablet to see the minute tremors starting in her hands. The violet sparks dancing across her knuckles were no longer precise arcs of power, but rather jagged, sputtering flickers as unpredictable as a dying nerve.
“The lesson is over, Callie,” I said, allowing my voice to drop the last vestiges of its clinical armor.
It was a transition that felt entirely foreign and unsettling. Usually, I was the one who maintained the distance, the one who translated our monstrosity into data and logic to keep the h
