Page 68 of GlitchBorn Heart

“You have no way of rescuing me. You don’t even know how this happened. I don’t want anything from you,” she threatens. Golden flames erupt on every screen in the lab. “And if you’re lying to me, Kael, I will set your whole world on fire, and you with it. You’re a monster.”

And back to blackness.

26

WindowWaves

Playlist: Cure For Me (Vintage Culture Remix) – Aurora

Lyra

I was shocked but not surprised. I don’t know, maybe a little impressed, to see Kael through his window program. The “window” was not a window at all, though. Not the kind that lets light in. It was a way for Kael to keep track of me, to cage me, control me.

Sure, it’s nice to communicate again. To hear a voice that isn’t my own. To feel like someone is on the other side of the silence instead of waking up every day screaming into the void.

But I’m not naive. Kael isn’t being kind. He’s selfish and self-absorbed.

He can’t let Vikktor find out what happened to me. If Vikktor learns an anomaly slipped through the cracks, or worse, landed in his system, it would unravel everything Kael’s built in that lab. It would cost him his reputation, his position, maybe even his life. Corporations don’t tolerate mistakes. Errors are an invitation for men like Vikktor to hunt you down and erase your existence from the grid.

An eye for an eye.

For a brief moment, the darker thought tempts me. What if I trip every alarm in the city or bleed my magic straight into VikkCorp’s feeds? I could rewrite the holo-ads to scream rebellion across every tower and sit back and watch his perfect system spill the truths citizens aren’t allowed to hear.

I could.

But vengeance isn’t the cure for me. Revenge won’t put me back where I belong. Destroying his world might feel good for a heartbeat, but it won’t give me back my body, my brother, or my life.

Because if Kael thinks I’m just surviving in here, waiting for him to rescue me like a damsel in distress, he’s already underestimated me.

I return to DreamNet to wait and learn. I make my way through the familiar threads, back to the cottage, my only place to land in this vast network of digital darkness.

I flop down on the warm sand of my beach and stare at the sunset. I close my eyes, willing my powers to the surface, feeling them buzz just below my skin. Perhaps I can make the sun fade slowly tonight so I can savor each passing ray of light.

I grab the sketchbook from the blanket where I left it and rest it on my knees. The moment the pencil touches the page, my eyes flutter shut and my breathing slows. It steadies me, anchors me. DreamNet responds instantly, wrapping me in the calmness needed to plan my next move.

Patience.

The ocean plays the same song it did that night, when Eli and I watched the sun sink into the water, neither of us speaking because some moments shouldn’t be disturbed. Pixelated gulls fly overhead, their cries glitchy and digitized but familiar.

I’ve preserved this memory meticulously. Every sound, color, and smell lives sealed inside a carefully guarded box in my mind, untouched and uncorrupted.

And here, in this place between dream and memory, I open it again.

Another deep breath fills my lungs with salt air. I’ll need to hold onto every detail of this dream to keep me from being alone in a world that’s trying to steal everything from me.

Thoughts.

Too many. I replay the past hour like a movie in my mind. He looked dangerous, like a dark storm dressed in a suit. The light from his monitors carving hard planes across his handsome face. Shadows pooled under his cheekbones and under his chin, hiding the ink crawling up his neck. He had a look about him, like he wanted to throw himself in front of a train just to see if the pain would prove he’s still alive.

I know that feeling. I felt it right here in this spot on the beach when he kissed me in my dream. I was dead inside, torn up and spit out by a neon-lit city determined to crush my spirit beneath the weight of its relentless demands. But in that moment, he brought me back to life.

A beautiful dream that just may have been a trap.

“Lyra.” His voice came through the static so tenderly, desperately, when I first heard him call to me through the window program. I had no problem reaching for the thread of code and pulling myself through just to see him. I shouldn’t have. Even through the rage, I was still being pulled into his orbit like a dying star.

My fingers curl around the pencil until my knuckles whiten. I’m a fool. Desire makes you do things the logical brain would never normally allow.

He didn’t look that surprised to see me. If anything, his face smoothed into satisfaction, like a predator, pleased his prey had challenged him. He was curt with his denial that he wasn’t the one that did this to me. The quiet, dangerous calm of him highlighted the light specks in his dark eyes, drawing me in. Just being in the same room with Kael feels like standing too close to a flame you know will burn you.