~Elara~
Caleb struggled to his feet, blood darkening his shirt where the lead wolf had bitten him. The wound wasn't healing—the silver in the beast's saliva preventing his natural regeneration. "Elara," he rasped, "whatever he's shown you—"
I silenced him with a gesture, silver light crackling at my fingertips.
"You don't get to speak," I said, advancing toward him with measured steps. "Not after what you've hidden from me."
The Algorithm surged within me, a storm of code and instinct merging into something new—something I was only beginning to understand. The world looked different through these silver-tinged eyes, patterns emerging where once I'd seen only chaos.
Caleb was a pattern I'd mistakenly trusted. Through the Algorithm I did now understand from one of my mother's videos why
