We didn’t stop running until the sun bled out behind the hills. The air smelled of ozone and wet metal; the world itself seemed to thrum in time with my heartbeat.
Every pulse felt heavier.
By nightfall we found shelter inside an abandoned relay station—a rusted dome of antennae half-swallowed by ivy. The place still had power, a faint hum from a solar bank the storms hadn’t claimed. Kira sealed the door and dropped her pack with a sigh.
“Okay,” she said. “Now you tell me what’s happening to you.”
“I don’t know,” I lied.
She stared. “Don’t do that. You’re glowing through your sleeve.”
I glanced down. The veins along my wrist shone faint blue, the same shade as the Protocol’s roots in the valley. Every time my heart beat, a pulse of light ran from palm to elbow.
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Dependen
