The Chaudharys' flat had never been quiet before, but on that night the noise had changed. At least, Deke thought it did.
He cut through streets where the air smelled of fried oil and exhaust, and everywhere his eyes landed there seemed to be signs. Graffiti scrawled in thick red: INK BELONGS TO US. A smaller message underneath—REGISTRY IS A CULL—had been half-scrubbed by someone with more soap than conviction.
People without marks hurried with their heads down, steering clear of alleys as if some secret timetable had been posted without their knowledge. He overheard whispers near the bus depot: "Safe houses. Red cloth at the door. Knock twice, wait, knock once."
It didn't sound like certainty—it sounded like desperation—but to Deke, desperation was a kind of truth.
He began to shadow groups at a distance, moving when they moved, stopping when they stopped. There was a rhythm to it, like water running toward a drain. The unmarked avoided what the marked sought: side streets, hidden doors, staircases leading down.
The government's drones hovered above the main roads, spotlights sweeping back and forth. Cold, mechanical, faceless. A soldier who caught you glowing was as likely to shoot as to speak.
The rebels, though—they were flesh and breath and choice. They had armbands and slogans, but also faces. Tired, frightened faces, yes, but faces all the same.
"If anyone can hide us," he thought, "it's them. Soldiers will shoot first. The rebels… they'll claim her. And maybe claim me too. But at least we'll live."
The thought felt sensible when he shaped it. He ignored the small, uneasy part of himself that whispered he was mistaking fervor for safety.
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The mark had not always been there. It had arrived like a nightmare that refused to stay in its proper place.
He had been asleep, dreaming of the sky. Not the familiar grey London kind, but a sky that split down the middle like a sheet torn by invisible hands. Stars bled through the crack—bright at first, then dark, twisting into lines of ink that dripped downward, staining everything below. The dream went wronger with each second until he felt it touch the back of his neck.
Deke woke screaming. His sheets were damp, his throat raw, and his skin—his skin was blistered in a pattern too neat to be accident. He had clawed at it in the mirror, half-hoping it was dirt or a rash, but the shape was already forming. Curling lines, curling tighter, bright enough to glow faintly in the dark.
It burned for days. He wore collars high enough to hide it, lying to his parents about new allergies, until even they stopped asking. He thought he would go mad from the heat of it.
And then, one night, the doorbell had rung. Layla had been there, hood up, face pale, eyes refusing to say where she had been for the past week. The mark cooled the moment she stepped inside. By morning, the burning had stopped entirely.
He never doubted after that. The mark wasn't for him—it was because of her. Anchored to her, steadied by her. Whatever it meant, whatever it wanted, it had chosen him only to make sure she survived.
In his mind, that was the truth. He was not chosen for greatness or power. He was chosen to guard Layla. And if the mark meant pain, secrecy, or even betrayal, then so be it.
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London had never looked orderly, but tonight the disorder had meaning. At least, Deke thought it did.
He cut through streets where the air smelled of fried oil and exhaust, and everywhere his eyes landed there seemed to be signs. Graffiti scrawled in thick red: INK BELONGS TO US. A smaller message underneath—REGISTRY IS A CULL—had been half-scrubbed by someone with more soap than conviction.
People without marks hurried with their heads down, steering clear of alleys as if some secret timetable had been posted without their knowledge. He overheard whispers near the bus depot: "Safe houses. Red cloth at the door. Knock twice, wait, knock once."
It didn't sound like certainty—it sounded like desperation—but to Deke, desperation was a kind of truth.
He began to shadow groups at a distance, moving when they moved, stopping when they stopped. There was a rhythm to it, like water running toward a drain. The unmarked avoided what the marked sought: side streets, hidden doors, staircases leading down.
The government's drones hovered above the main roads, spotlights sweeping back and forth. Cold, mechanical, faceless. A soldier who caught you glowing was as likely to shoot as to speak.
The rebels, though—they were flesh and breath and choice. They had armbands and slogans, but also faces. Tired, frightened faces, yes, but faces all the same.
"If anyone can hide us," he thought, "it's them. Soldiers will shoot first. The rebels… they'll claim her. And maybe claim me too. But at least we'll live."
The thought felt sensible when he shaped it. He ignored the small, uneasy part of himself that whispered he was mistaking fervor for safety.
--------------------------------------------
He found them in the skeleton of an old laundrette. The windows had been smashed years ago; boards covered the gaps like crooked teeth. Inside, three figures crouched over a crate, murmuring. Red armbands at their sleeves caught the dim light.
Deke cleared his throat before stepping in, though the sound came out thinner than intended.
"Who's there?" one snapped, already reaching under a coat.
"Just me," Deke said, raising his hands. His voice wobbled, so he forced it louder. "I heard about safe houses."
The nearest figure moved fast—too fast for Deke to step back—pressing something sharp against his chest. A knife. Or maybe just a bit of pipe. The point didn't matter.
"Safe houses aren't for strays," the rebel said, breath sour with fear more than menace. "Talk, and talk quick."
Another shifted, muttering, "Check him. Neck first."
Deke's instinct was to flinch, but flinching would only make it worse. The collar of his jacket was tugged down, and there it was: the glow. Faint but undeniable, curling lines at his throat, pulsing in time with his heart.
The change was immediate. The knife dropped away; suspicion bent into interest. The third figure leaned forward, eyes narrowing with something between respect and wariness.
"Marked," one breathed. "Real."
They looked at him differently now—not a trespasser, but a resource.
And Deke, heart hammering, blurted the first words that would make sense of it all. "I'll bring you someone. She's different. No mark, but… she bends things. Drones notice her. Lights burst around her. You want her on your side."
There was a beat of silence, long enough for him to feel the echo of his own voice and wonder if he had gone too far.
Then the leader smirked, a sharp little twist of the mouth that promised more danger than kindness. "A ghost without ink? Bring her. We'll see if she's ours."
Deke's mark burned hot against his skin, as if it disapproved. He pressed his collar higher.
"This is how I keep her alive," he told himself. If they wanted him, they would want her. The soldiers would kill her outright. The rebels might cage her, might test her, but they wouldn't erase her.
He ignored the nagging voice that whispered he was trading her like cargo.
Because cargo could survive the journey.
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The café had smelled of damp wood and sugar gone stale, but Deke didn't notice it the way she did. He noticed her.
She sat hunched on the counter, hood shadowing her face, lips pressed thin around a protein bar that seemed determined to crumble everywhere but her mouth. She chewed as though each bite were a battle, and he thought—irrationally, embarrassingly—that she looked magnificent. Radiant, even in ruin.
Layla didn't see it, of course. She never did.
He had slid the water bottle across to her earlier with what he hoped was casual ease, though his heart had thumped loud enough to make the cap rattle in his hand. "Drink," he'd told her, gruff, as though it were nothing more than an instruction. But when she'd taken a sip, he'd felt like he'd won something enormous. A small victory no one else would ever know.
Her brittle jokes only made it worse. When she muttered about "streetlamps disagreeing," he bit down on the protest that rose to his throat. He wanted to tell her she wasn't poison, she wasn't cursed. That if the lights shattered, it was the world's fault, not hers. Instead, he swallowed the words. She didn't need reassurance, he told himself. She needed silence. And so he gave her that, even though it ached.
It was always like this—treasuring her even when she cut herself down. The way she tucked her hands into her sleeves, as if trying to fold herself smaller, only made him want to reach across and take them out. He settled for brushing her sleeve once, clumsy and too quick, as though the contact were accidental. She didn't notice. Or pretended not to.
He did, however. He noticed everything.
Her voice when she asked, low and tired, "Why me?" The way her shoulders hunched when she muttered about being poison. The faint crease in her forehead when she thought too hard. To Deke, these were treasures, proof that she existed, and he clung to them like a drowning man clings to driftwood.
He had told himself for years that what he felt didn't matter. That Layla was his sister in everything but blood. That wanting more was selfish, dangerous even. But here, in the café's dim light, the crush roared loud enough to drown out common sense. He watched her drink water, watched her push crumbs off the counter, and thought it was unbearable that she didn't see herself the way he did.
And then, of course, his mark betrayed him.
It started as an itch, the same slow burn he had hidden for nights on end. But Layla was close this time, close enough that the pulse brightened, glowing faintly through the edge of his collar. He adjusted his jacket quickly, heart thumping like a drum, but not before she noticed.
Her eyes caught on it, sharp and unblinking.
For a moment he forgot to breathe. Not because it was exposed, not because the rebels might discover him—but because she looked at him differently. Not as Layla, the girl who made cruel jokes about herself. Not as the orphan who carried poison in her veins. She looked at him as if he had lied to her.
And the truth was worse than any lie.
Panic clawed at him. His instinct was to blurt, It's nothing. It doesn't mean anything. But the words would have been a betrayal. The mark did mean something—to him, to her, to whatever had stitched it into his skin the night the sky cracked in his dreams.
Instead, he forced a shrug, rolling his shoulder as if to scratch away the glow. "Yeah. Just… itch," he muttered, as if a burning mark could be shrugged off like a mosquito bite.
She didn't answer. She didn't have to. The look was enough.
Inside, his stomach knotted. She didn't see him the way he wanted to be seen. Not as her anchor. Not as her protector. Just another stranger with a mark, another reminder of the chaos chewing through their world.
And yet—when she pushed her hood back for a second, wiping rain from her temple, the light caught her hair, and he thought, despite everything: radiant. Still radiant.
He would carry that thought even when she no longer looked at him at all.
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The moment the shadows slipped from the walls and closed in around them, Deke's chest loosened. Most people would have felt panic, but not him. He had waited for this. Planned for it. The circle of hooded figures, red bands at their arms, was not a trap—it was the lifeline he had promised himself.
Layla stiffened beside him, eyes darting, shoulders rising. Deke forced himself not to flinch, not to betray the small pulse of relief in his veins. This was how she lived. This was how they both lived.
Hands shoved him back, tugged at his collar until the fabric gave. The mark glowed. He didn't fight it. He tilted his head, even—Good. Let them see. Let them trust me.
The shift was immediate. Suspicion melted into recognition, and recognition into something like welcome. They had no reason to kill him now. He was theirs, in the way marked people always belonged to someone.
"She comes too," Deke blurted, voice sharp with urgency. His hands spread wide, offering nothing but desperation. "Non-negotiable."
The leader smirked, amused by his insistence. "Unmarked?"
"She bends things," Deke said quickly. "Lights, drones—she draws them. She's more than unmarked. She's different." His throat worked. "She comes too."
It was the first time Layla looked at him as though he had struck her.
Betrayal. Horror. All in one glance.
The expression cut deeper than any knife could have done. He wanted to tell her—to pour the words out in a flood that would wash away the awful shape of what he'd done. Say something. Tell her it's for her. Tell her you chose this so she'd live. Tell her anything—
But his mouth betrayed him. It opened, then closed. Nothing came.
The rebels yanked her hood back and shoved coarse fabric over her face. She thrashed once, a muffled cry breaking free, before they tied it tight.
Deke stood frozen. The words that might have saved her, or at least softened the blow, died in his throat. And his silence sealed the handover more firmly than any knot could.
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The bunker smelled of rust and damp, but all Deke could taste was ash in his mouth. Layla's scream still rang in his ears, even though it had been swallowed by stone.
He paced the corridor until his feet blistered in his shoes. "I need to see her," he told the guards. "She's mine—I mean, she's with me—you can't just—"
They shoved him back each time, harder, until his shoulder ached from the wall.
He tried bargaining, then begging. Neither worked. The rebels didn't look at him like a comrade. They looked at him like a pawn that had already made its move.
And then she came.
Maya.
At first glance she was nothing but scars and ink, but Deke felt the truth instantly. She didn't carry herself like someone fighting to save the world. She carried herself like someone who had already decided the world belonged to her.
The way the others straightened when she passed, the way her eyes dismissed him with the coolness of someone appraising tools on a shelf—Deke understood, in a single miserable moment, what he had done.
These people don't save. They use.
The thought nearly bent him double. He wanted to run back down the corridor, tear the doors open, pull Layla out by the hand. But the walls were thick, thicker than his will, thicker than his mark.
For the first time since the blistering night it had appeared, the mark didn't burn.
He did.
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The resonance chamber was colder than the rest of the bunker, yet Deke felt sweat running down his back the moment he saw her.
They had strapped Layla into the rig as if she were a specimen rather than a girl who used to share crisps with him on the school bus. The coils arched over her like ribs waiting to close, and copper nodes crawled down to her collarbone. She didn't flinch. That, more than anything, made his stomach twist.
Deke pressed the intercom button so hard his thumb ached. "Stop it," he said. His voice cracked, then steadied. "She's not your experiment."
The rebels ignored him. Screens flickered; dials turned; the coils hummed their awful lullaby.
"Stop it!" His fist hit the glass. The sound was hollow, desperate.
Inside, Layla lifted her head. For the first time since the alley, she looked straight at him. Her face was pale in the harsh light, but her eyes were steady, almost calm.
"Deke," she said, voice barely audible through the glass. "Don't."
It was such a small word, but it carried everything he had feared she knew about him—his bargains, his silence, his terrible hope that betrayal could be spun as salvation.
He felt his throat close. He wanted to shout back: I did it to save you! You're all I have! I would trade myself a thousand times if it meant you lived! But the words tangled like thread in his mouth.
Instead, he made his choice.
Before the guards at the console could react, he lunged at the door. The latch fought him, groaning, but he shoved until metal screeched and the bulkhead gave a grudging inch. Then another. He forced himself through, shoulders scraping, the air inside humming against his bones.
Maya turned, her expression unreadable, but Deke hardly saw her. His eyes were fixed only on Layla—Layla, bound and trembling, the coils beginning to sing.
He stumbled toward her, hand outstretched. "It's all right," he wanted to say. "Better me than you."
The wave met him halfway.
Heat without fire. Light without color.
His body knew it was ending before his mind did. The mark at his neck flared once, then stilled.
His final thought was not of guilt, nor even of pain. It was of her. Better me than her.
Then the world went white.
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END OF CHAPTER