Chapter 280
The moment the blood transfer hits its full rhythm, I feel it—not just in my body, but in my self. My edges blur. Thought and sensation start leaking into each other. The Darklite burns like lightning through my veins, taking pieces of me and sending them hurtling across a silver wire straight into her.
It’s like being hollowed out with fire.
The pod is hot now, suffocating. My limbs won’t listen. My chest rises and falls in short, shallow bursts. I can’t even lift a hand to wipe the sweat off my face.
I think—this is it. This is how she wins. Not with a war. Not with a gun. With a transfusion and a theory and a couple of modified crystals.
Then the door explodes open.
The sound echoes through the lab, and suddenly there’s a flurry of motion and a familiar surge of something wild and furious bursting into the room.
Wake.
He moves like a storm given shape—shoulders squared, jaw set, weapons at the ready. His presence hits me like a jolt of adrenaline, cutting through the haze. And he’s not alone.
Miore’s right behind him, icy eyes locked on every exit. And behind them—
“Cora?” I croak.
She’s already moving toward the central console. No hesitation.
“Wait,” I gasp, struggling upright against the pod’s restraints. “Wait—don’t stop it. Not yet. Too much blood’s already gone. I won’t survive the whiplash.”
Wake’s at my side in seconds. He grabs the edge of my pod, leans in, eyes searching my face like he’s making sure all of me is still here. “I’ve got you,” he says. “I promise.”
Then, sharp—he looks back at the others. “Miore—lock down the entrance. Nothing gets in or out.”
They move without question.
“Cora,” he says next, voice dropping low and firm. “Make the call.”
“What call?” Lily snaps, still half-reclined in her pod. Her voice is thinner now, laced with confusion and panic. “What the hell are you talking about?”
I don’t know either. I meet Wake’s eyes, and he just gives me a nod like it’ll all make sense in a second.
Cora pulls a small phone from inside her jacket. One I’ve never seen before. Sleek, unmarked, glowing with a strange soft blue light. She starts tapping keys like she’s been rehearsing this moment for weeks.
And the facility changes.
I feel it before I see it—locks clunking into place, doors slamming shut, lights shifting from sterile white to blood-red emergency mode. A low alarm hums under the surface of it all, but no one moves.
Cora speaks into the phone, calm and commanding. “Silo, take the west end. Arista, secure the east. No one leaves this facility.”
Lily’s eyes widen. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Wake steps away from me and snarls, “What we should’ve done from the beginning. Shutting this place down.”
Cora looks over her shoulder at Lily. “Our team finished the infiltration days ago. Your systems are ours now. This facility is under our control.”
The monitor next to Lily’s pod starts shrieking with warnings. Elevated vitals. Accelerated rhythms. She’s panicking. I feel the shift in the link between us—her fear dragging harder at my consciousness, my vision dimming by degrees.
“You think your little ragtag team of walking pocket protectors can take this facility from me?” Lily barks, blinking fast, breath getting ragged. “Shoal’s soldiers were designed to overpower entire Enkian forces. What exactly do you think you can do against them?”
Cora doesn’t flinch. “That’s the problem with biohacking. You turn people into computers.”
She presses a final sequence into the phone.
“And computers?” Her voice turns cold. “They can be turned off.”
Overhead, the facility’s PA system crackles.
Then the sound begins.
A haunting, layered melody, like whale song and wind tunnels stitched into one. It fills the air like pressure in a storm. It rolls down my spine, reverberates through my ribs, coils in my lungs. Even though I’m not affected, I can feel it. The melody doesn’t target the mind. It targets the blood.
Lily feels it too.
The machines connected to her scream louder.
She gasps, mouth open, limbs twitching in her restraints. “What is this? What have you done?!”
Cora doesn’t even look at her. She watches the monitors like she’s watching a sunset.
“I didn’t do anything,” she says. “Peter and Delphi did.”
Lily’s body jerks against the restraints. “What?!”
“When we were young,” Cora goes on, tone calm as a surgeon’s. “Before they disappeared, Delphi was given a title by the elders of the Eastern Twilight. They called her the Voice of Ages. A true siren. Not the lab-grown ones you tried to clone. Not the myth you read about. The kind that stories came from.”
My heart punches against my ribs. I try to sit up, but I’m too weak. “Delphi…?”
Cora nods. “She gave Peter everything he needed. And together, they perfected what you never could. Your hivemind discovery was impressive. But when it comes to truly understanding our biology,” She smiles. “That was never your mountain to summit.”
Lily shakes her head, voice cracking. “You’re bluffing. You’re bluffing! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!”
Wake doesn’t even blink. He stands like a wall, dark and still and unmoved.
“We’ve disabled your hivemind,” he says. “We control the facility. It’s over, Lily.”
He leans closer, voice dropping into a low, dangerous growl.
“Whether this building is still standing when we leave… that’s up to you.”
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