The alarms were like knives against my skull, sharp and relentless. Red light strobed across the lab, bathing the steel walls in a pulsing glow that looked too much like blood. Every flicker carved Kael's silhouette in harsher lines, shadow and light dancing across his broad shoulders, his sharp jaw.
He didn't flinch at the sirens. He didn't panic like a man caught trespassing should. He stood rooted, centered, calm as if he had expected all of this the trace, the lockdown, the chaos.
"You need to move," he said, his voice low but steady, carrying an authority that pressed against me like a physical weight.
I clutched the wrench tighter, my palms slick. "Move? Toward the guy who broke into my lab? Not a chance."
His mouth curved not a smile, but something darker, edged with grim amusement. "You don't have a choice. They're already on their way."
As if summoned by his words, a distant pounding echoed faintly through the ventilation shafts above. Boots. Dozens of them. Syndicate security, but not the casual patrols I sometimes overheard on night shifts. This sound was heavier, coordinated, sharp as thunder. They weren't coming to reprimand me for unauthorized access.
They were coming to erase me.
My chest squeezed tight. Every instinct screamed denial, but Kael's composure was worse than the alarms. His stance had shifted subtly, no wasted motion balanced, alert. Not an engineer. Not a researcher. A soldier.
"You've got maybe ninety seconds," he said. "Less if you keep wasting time arguing."
I forced my voice steady, though it trembled anyway. "And I'm supposed to believe you're my… what, my rescuer?"
That faint almost-smile again, this time even colder. "Trust me, I wouldn't call myself that."
The alarms stuttered for a single breath, then roared back at double volume. The system wasn't just calling for security it was sealing exits. Somewhere above, I heard heavy slabs of reinforced steel slamming into place. This whole floor was becoming a cage.
I should have run then. Bolted past him, taken my chances with the emergency lifts before they locked completely. But something in his eyes pinned me dark, sharp, bottomless, carrying too many secrets to walk away from.
"Who are you?" I demanded.
He stepped closer, his movements too controlled, too silent. I raised the wrench higher, every muscle in my arm shaking with the effort to hold steady.
"Kael," he said simply, his voice cutting clean through the noise. "And you've just painted a target on your back you won't survive alone."
Kael. A name with no context, no anchor. Yet it clung to the air like static, unsettling and unshakable.
"Why are you here?" I pressed.
He didn't answer directly. Instead, he moved toward the console where the Code had burned itself into my world minutes ago. His gloved fingers skimmed the holographic keys, moving with familiarity, precision, as though he'd worked this system before.
Panic flared. I lunged forward. "Stop! Don't touch it"
"Too late," he cut in without looking at me. "You already woke it up. Now it's tracing everything about you. Credentials. Projects. Family."
The last word struck harder than the alarms.
"My family?"
Finally, Kael looked at me. His gaze sharpened. "You've got someone, don't you?"
Eli. My younger brother's face flashed in my mind reckless grin, ink-stained hands from scribbling mechanical designs, the only blood I had left in this world. I'd worked so hard to keep him hidden from the Syndicate's chokehold, enrolled him in a small education program far from these labs, away from their reach.
If Kael was right if the Code had traced me that deep then Eli wasn't safe anymore.
I swallowed the panic clawing up my throat. "Why should I believe you?"
Kael's gaze slid toward the door as a metallic clang reverberated down the corridor. The sound of breaching equipment. They weren't using codes or scanners. They were cutting their way in.
"Because," Kael said evenly, "if you don't, you'll be dead in sixty seconds."
The door's reinforced steel groaned like an animal under strain. My pulse spiked. He wasn't lying.
And though I hated myself for it, I moved toward him.
"What do you want from me?" I demanded.
Kael's expression was unreadable, his face all shadows and edges. "Right now? For you to stay alive long enough to decide."
I opened my mouth to argue, but the door exploded inward before I could form the words.
Sparks. Smoke. The stench of scorched metal.
Figures stormed through, armored head to toe in matte-black exosuits, rifles raised, visors glowing faintly red in the haze. Their movements were fast, seamless too trained, too brutal.
"Step away from the console!" one barked, his voice filtered through a modulator.
My breath caught. For a heartbeat I thought Kael might obey, that maybe he was just another piece of Syndicate muscle. But then he moved fast, impossibly fast.
In a blur, he placed himself between me and the soldiers, his arm snapping up. Metal shifted and unfolded from his wrist with a mechanical hiss, transforming into a luminous barrier that curved outward with a soft hum.
A shield. Sleek, translucent, humming with energy.
Gunfire erupted. The confined lab became thunder itself. Bullets struck the barrier, sparking on contact, ricocheting in jagged flashes of white. The scent of ozone thickened until it burned my throat.
Kael didn't flinch. He advanced, each step steady, controlled, pushing the barrier forward as though he'd rehearsed this a thousand times.
The soldiers adjusted, shouting orders, but Kael was faster. His free hand snapped up, palm splayed. A pulse of blue-white energy erupted, rippling across the lab like a shockwave. The front line of soldiers lifted off their feet, flung like ragdolls into the far wall.
The impact rattled the servers. I stumbled, clutching the wrench like a talisman, my mind reeling.
I gaped at him. "What the hell are you?"
Kael glanced back at me briefly, his eyes hard and cold as steel. "Later. Move."
The remaining soldiers regrouped, rifles glowing with charge. But Kael didn't give them the chance. His hand shot out, gripping my arm, pulling me toward the emergency lift at the far end of the lab.
I resisted on instinct, wrench still in my grip. "This is insane I don't even know you!"
He didn't slow, didn't look back. "You don't need to. You just need to survive."
We reached the lift. Kael slammed his palm against the override panel. Sparks jumped, the system stuttered, then the doors slid open with a hiss.
"Go!" he ordered.
Gunfire thundered behind us. We stumbled inside just as another hail of rounds tore through the lab, sparking against metal, leaving trails of molten steel.
The doors closed. Silence, sudden and suffocating, filled the lift. My breathing sounded ragged, too loud. My hands trembled around the wrench.
I pressed myself against the wall, glaring at him, fury mixing with fear. "Start talking. Now."
Kael lowered his shield. The glowing barrier folded back into his wrist device with a hiss of compressed air. For a moment, he said nothing, just studied me with that unreadable soldier's stare. Then finally:
"You weren't supposed to find the Eternal Code."
The name hit like an electric current. "You know what it is?"
His jaw clenched. "I know enough. Enough to know that if the Syndicate gets their hands on it, they'll twist it into something worse than death. And if you think tonight was bad…" He trailed off, eyes flicking upward as the lift ascended.
"What?" I pressed, my voice sharp.
His gaze locked on mine, steady and grim. "This is only the beginning."
The lift jerked violently, slamming me against the wall. Sparks rained from the ceiling. Kael cursed under his breath, bracing himself against the railing.
"They've cut the power," he muttered.
The lift shuddered, groaning in protest, then ground to a halt between floors. The overhead lights sputtered out, plunging us into darkness broken only by the faint red glow of the emergency strip along the floor.
My heart pounded. I wasn't trapped in a lab anymore. I was trapped in a coffin.
A crackle burst through the comm speakers above, distorted and cold. A voice, mechanical, emotionless.
"Dr. Ayla Morgan. Surrender the Code access or your life is forfeit."
The sound hollowed me out. The Syndicate wasn't threatening arrest. They were threatening execution.
Kael's hand hovered near the weapon at his hip, his jaw set, eyes sharp.
I gripped the wrench tighter, my fingers aching. My mind spiraled security above, Kael beside me, the Code echoing in my thoughts.
For the first time, the truth hit me fully, cold and merciless:
The moment I opened that file, my life had stopped being mine.
---
Ayla and Kael are trapped in a sabotaged lift. The Syndicate demands her surrender through the comms. Kael's true loyalties remain uncertain, and Ayla must decide whether to trust a man she doesn't know or surrender to enemies she can't escape.