Page 120 of GlitchBorn Heart

Except, something’s very wrong.

I look down at my hands. They’re not light and code, not pixels, not anything I’ve seen before. They’re me. A perfect rendering of me. Skin, hair, clothes. Holographic light, but whole. My limbs feel heavy my senses amplified.

“Lyra!” Kael runs to me. “Are you okay?” He circles me like a bear assessing its cub. His hands are all over me, touching me, checking that I’m fully intact.

I ignore him.

“Fuck her, Kael! I’m done waiting!” I snarl. Rage has always been the fuel for my power. I reach for that extra spark igniting deep inside me, despite being so weak. “I’m going to tear your system down and LINK with it!” My lips purse.

I focus inward and try to reach for the grid the way I always have. It’s now instinctive. I open myself to the threads of code.

Nothing.

I blink, surprised, and try again, harder this time. I dig my fingers into the sensation of code, into the hum that used to answer me immediately. My magic only sparks, a flare without a flame. It crackles under my skin, frustrated. No ignition, no doors, no response.

“What?!” My voice stutters. “No! Kael!”

I push again, more reckless now, shoving power where it shouldn’t go. The grid doesn’t bend. It’s like punching into fog. Panic climbs up my throat. Kael backs up, his expression halfway between confusion and shock.

This has never happened. Even trapped, even hunted, even broken, I’ve always been able to move. Eli’s void surges have caged me in the murk, but I’ve always been able to rebuild. DreamNet has to be there, my sanctuary, the one place I can slip into when the world comes crashing down around me. It’s where I fight, where I run to for solace, where I survive.

I try to find the door for the ocean, my beach, anything. But nothing answers.

I look around frantically. My heightened emotions are still bleeding into every single system in the lab, but my magic is a flicker in my veins, even weaker this time. I feel it recoil, as if someone or something wrapped around the grid and sealed it shut from the inside.

“I’m stuck!” Panic floods my veins. “Kael! I can’t see any code. I can’t pull any threads. I’m fucking stuck!”

“No,” he whispers, his forehead crumpling. “Eli can’t lock you out.” He walks to the console, surveying the screen. “It must be her. It has to be LINK.” Shame washes over his features, the boldness of his creation humbling him.

I slam my palm against empty air, expecting resistance, or backlash, anything really. Instead, there’s only a dull ache that reverberates up my arm, like the system itself is absorbing me without letting me in.

That’s when it hits me. “Kael, I’m not being blocked. I’m being held. Held in place in my holo-form, outside the grid.” I shake my head in desperation.

I’ve forced myself out of LINK’s reach, but have I also locked myself into this form? I walked through the door to escape, but she slammed it shut behind me. I’m not invisible data anymore. I’m standing here, in Kael’s lab, like a real person again. Not a full human, and not a hologram, but some sort of synthetic mutation.

The air shifts beside me, pulling at my senses. I can feel him.

Kael’s presence is massive, like an anchor for my aching soul. I don’t even need to turn to know he’s there, right beside me. My heart betrays me, a single skip that feels like free-fall. His arms wrap around me, holding me, leveling me.

I don’t deserve him.

No matter how bad he may be, I’m worse. He’s willing to destroy his life’s work for me, to rip open his own creation if it means getting me out. He came from the streets, from nothing, and built himself into something, yes, a corporate something, but it’s still admirable. It’s still survival. Yet I refuse to trust him with my own survival.

I continuously tried to push him away because I thought he intentionally did this to me. I thought he planned this. But in reality he’s a victim just like me.

My own brother is the one who should hold the blame for ending my existence.

The thought carves a hole through me. Every time I’ve lashed out at Kael, every venomous word, every time I pictured him as the monster in the corporate mask it’s been a shield against something much worse. The truth.

I glance at him from the corner of my eye. He’s just standing here, wrapping me in his warm body. He kisses my temple then moves a few feet away. No words, just action. He’s checking data, fingers flying to find out what exactly is happening to me.

Of course he is.

His face is carved from restraint, but his eyes, they smolder. They’re not the eyes of my captor. They’re the eyes of a man who’s willing to save me no matter the cost to him.

I sigh deeply. I should be scared. But I’m not. Just having him wrapped around me gives me a cocoon of protection I haven’t felt since being in the arms of my father.

I mean I’m trapped in a state of holo-human form, but at least I’m with him. And Ash. And Ember. And...wait Jett?