“Alex…”

  “Alex…”

  “ALEX!”

  I blinked. The broadcast room hummed around me as I blinked. I looked at the comm in my hand. Pushing the replay button again. And again. The static blurred, but her voice still cut deep. “Just don’t do anything reckless.” The words clawed at my ribs, twisting something sharp in my chest. Even when the comm was silent, it echoed, threading through my thoughts like a ghost I couldn’t shake.

  I stabbed the replay button once more. Her voice crackled, weaker this time, the recording degrading. “Alex, promise me—” Static swallowed the rest. I slammed my palm against the console in front of me, the screen flickering.

  My grip tightened on the device. Not even playing it again. Just holding it. Like it would somehow, some way, make a difference. My knuckles whitened, and the casing creaked, my fingers trembling before curling into a fist.

  “Alex.” Said Jax again as he stepped forward, face ashen. “The ministers are mobilizing. They’ve sent out an order to seize this location. I’m not sure if it’s one of them or multiple. But there are reports of groups of armed soldiers moving here.”

  My vision narrowed, the edges blurring red. I snapped, my voice colder than I’d intended. “Contact Theon. Tell him to send everyone he has. Wait. Do we have any of our own here? ”

  Jax hesitated. “We do, but… If we fight here… civilians are still—”

  I turned, my glare sharp enough to cut the ice that was forming where my heart was. “If they’re stupid enough to remain near the fighting, then there’s nothing I can do.” The words left a bitter taste, too much like my stepfather. The man I swore I’d never be. He never cared about anyone.

  The thought sent a flicker of nausea through me. I shoved it down. “Please, Jax… Find me where Seraphina is.”

  Jax glanced at Zara but nodded, retreating back to a console in the corner. The room was too quiet. I could still hear Seraphina. Even without pressing play. ‘Alex, promise me—’ The memory warped, glitching as if my own mind was losing its grasp on reality.

  The words blurred, twisting into a grinding metallic screech, but I didn’t need to replay it anymore. It was already lodged in my skull. Seraphina’s message replayed in my mind again. ‘I don’t know if I’ll make it back’

  I had caused this. I had pushed her away when she begged for help. I reared back and slammed my fist into the console. Sparks erupted, the screen shattering into jagged teeth. For a heartbeat, I stared at the wreckage, my lungs burning, until gunfire shattered the silence.

  Bullets peppered the outside face of the main door. I swallowed, my throat dry as the metal doors began to glow—a dull, hellish orange. The air thickened, reeking of scorched ozone. Hinges creaked, groaning under pressure, and the door warped inward with a metallic scream. Fear crept up my spine.

  “Alex, stop looking at the damn comm. We need you here.” Shouted Zara. I couldn’t miss the edge of her voice. She was scared.

  “Jax. Ah… We’re safe in here, right?”

  Jax turned. His eyes widened as he processed. He shook his head. “Normally, I’d say we are. But now…” His voice faltered, like he already knew the answer. “Now… I’m not so sure. You rattled their cages, Alex. This is their answer.”

  I sighed. “This was their answer,” I muttered to no one. The ministers weren’t going to negotiate. They weren’t going to hesitate. They wanted me buried—whether in a cell or a grave, I figured it didn’t matter too much to them.

  The heat from the buckling door seared my face. My thumb hovered over my personal comm device. One more replay. One more chance to hear her voice. “Have you found where Seraphina is?”

  I barely heard Jax’s answer over the rising whine of superheated metal. The door bent inward—glowing orange at its seams.

  Zara screamed.

  The world erupted.

  The doors exploded inward—a concussive roar, shrapnel whistling past my ear. Dust choked the air, consoles toppling as the shockwave ripped through the room. Jax was already moving, dragging Zara behind a collapsed console on the other side of the room as my cyborg guards moved in front of me before the smoke cleared. Their limbs whirred, joints hissing like serpents, armour plating sliding seamlessly to seal bullet grazes.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Red targeting lasers sliced through the haze as their arm cannons pivoted—left unit firing, right unit reloading, a ceaseless rhythm. They advanced, footfalls crunching debris into powder, their optics cold and unblinking.

  Gunfire raged in the corridor. Screams. Wet thuds. A soldier lunged from the smoke, knife raised. The nearest cyborg, Beta 1, caught his wrist mid-swing. Its hydraulic grip crushed bone and the man’s scream was cut short as its other arm speared through his chest. No pause. No hesitation. Just gears turning.

  My guards lunged forward, their movements a blur of calculated violence, shrugging off hits like raindrops. I grunted as a bullet grazed my shoulder, the pain white-hot, molten. Cursing, I ducked behind a shattered terminal. Jax returned fire, cold and methodical.

  “Alex, fall back!” Jax shouted, but I was already moving forward, my boots slipping in blood-slick wreckage. The two cyborgs flanked me, their bodies intercepting shots meant for my skull. One took a grenade blast point-blank—its torso plating buckled, wires spitting sparks, but it kept firing, kept killing, a machine with no concept of pain. I could see why they called them the perfect soldier.

  Zara screamed again as shrapnel slammed into the table she huddled behind. Jax lunged toward me, but Zara seized his arm, her nails drawing blood. “Don’t—he’s not there anymore!” she hissed, her voice raw. “He’s already gone, Jax—don’t you dare make me watch you die too!”

  Not there anymore.

  I fumbled for the comm. Clutching at a lifeline. As I clenched my jaw so hard my teeth ground. I replayed Seraphina’s message as I fired. “—don’t do anything reckless—” A cyborg yanked me down as a bullet scorched the wall where my head had been. I caught my reflection in its chest plate. Wild eyes. Snarling mouth. For a second, I didn’t recognise myself.

  Jax stepped forward—then stopped. He knew. “Alex, stop!” His voice cracked—not with command, but with fear. Fear of me. Fear for me. But it didn’t matter. Seraphina was alone. And I wouldn’t walk away from her again.

  I fired blindly—not aiming, just raging. At myself for not helping her. At every soldier who died before me. At not being able to choose my life how I wanted it. I screamed as I pulled the trigger again. The recoil bit into my palm, my wound screaming with each shot. My fingers clenched, but the comm slid from my grasp, clattering against the wreckage. Seraphina’s voice rasped from the speaker, fractured and weak—"anything reckless—reckless—reckless—"

  A missed shot sparked off the wall, and I snarled, frustration boiling over. Every shot that landed, everybody that dropped—and still, I was losing. I was drowning. Drowning in bodies, in blood, in the war I had set loose.

  The cyborgs dragged me deeper into the fray, their weapons never silent. They were perfect. Relentless. And as I watched them carve through the storm of soldiers, the ministers—no, the Emperor—wanted us to be this. Hollow-eyed. Unflinching. A tide of metal and blood marched to his orders. I was already halfway there.

  None of it mattered to me. I needed to find her. Let her know I was sorry. That I cared.

  That was the only thought left as I tore through the smoking hallway, my gun kicking against my palm as my vision tunnelled. The cyborgs moved beside me, cold and precise, but I barely saw them. All I saw was the path forward.

  Seraphina was alone.

  And nothing—not bullets, not the ministers, not the corpses piling around me—was going to stop me from reaching her.

  ***

  A few minutes earlier.

  The comm in Jax’s hand crackled to life, its static drowned beneath the cacophony of gunfire. He ducked behind a smouldering console, blood streaking his temple, and shouted into the receiver. “Theon! We’re pinned down at the broadcast complex—need reinforcements now!”

  A plasma round scorched the wall above him. Zara returned fire, her shots precise but desperate. “Tell him to hurry!” she barked, her voice fraying.

  On the other end, Theon’s voice was a blade—cold, sharp, unyielding. “Mara’s mobilizing with two squads. ETA twelve minutes. Hold position.”

  “Twelve minutes?” Jax snarled, watching Alex surge forward, cyborgs absorbing bullets meant for his skull. “We’ll be overrun in five!”

  “Then we will make it eight,” Theon snapped. A pause, the clatter of armour in the background. “And Jax? Keep him alive. The boy’s no use to anyone dead.”

  The line died.

  Jax cursed, tossing the comm to Zara. “Cover the left!” He looked around the console, searching for where Alex was now. He spotted him as a Cyborg stepped infront of Alex again. “Alex. Dammit. Alex. Stop.”

  Alex didn’t hear them. Seraphina’s voice still looped in his skull, a broken record of guilt. “Promise me—” He fired blindly into the smoke, the recoil jolting his wounded shoulder. A rebel lunged from the haze, knife gleaming. Beta-1 intercepted, crushing the man’s skull with a hydraulic fist.

  “Alex, fall back!” Zara shouted again before she was forced to duck behind a pillar as shrapnel peppered the air. Her eyes burned as she groaned. Fear coursing through her. “Mara’s coming. Just hold on!”

  “Move!” Shouted Jax as he hauled her upright, pushing forward in the direction Alex had gone. The hallway ahead started to buckle as Jax cursed again.