ANMELDEN"I am you, Madison. But without the pesky emotions."The clone’s voice didn't just fill the room. It rattled inside Madison’s skull, a hollow, metallic resonance that made her molars ache. The glass of the stasis tank lay in a thousand jagged diamonds across the floor. The creature—the thing wearing Madison’s face—stepped through the debris. It didn't bleed from the shards cutting its bare feet. It just kept coming."The hell you are," Madison spat. She wiped a smudge of grease and salt from her forehead. "You're just a glorified science project with bad skin.""A project perfected." The clone tilted its head, mimicking Madison’s exact predatory stance. "Silas removed the rot. No family baggage. No Slum-born guilt. Just the fire.""Madi, don't let it get in your head!" Ethan shouted. He lunged forward, claws out, aiming for the clone’s throat.The clone didn't turn. It simply shifted its weight. A back-kick caught Ethan in the solar plexus, sending him flying across the lab and into a
"What the hell took you so long to open the hatch?" Madison's voice cracked like a whip over the roar of the wind. She adjusted the straps of her rebreather, her knuckles white against the black rubber."Check the altimeter, Madi! We're over the drop zone. Move!" Ethan shoved the stealth jet’s door aside. A wall of freezing air and salt spray slammed into the cabin."Three miles is a long swim for a human, Ethan.""Good thing you aren't human anymore, isn't it?" He flashed a jagged grin, then tipped backward into the abyss.Madison followed. The fall was a vertical blur of grey sky and black water. The impact hit her like a brick wall, driving the air from her lungs. She plunged deep into the churning Atlantic, the silence of the depths swallowing the jet’s scream. She kicked, her legs powerful, driving her toward the surface. Sharks circled in the dark below—jagged shadows sensing blood—but they stayed clear. The lunar hum in her veins acted like a toxic barrier.They swam with a rhy
"I told you to wait for me in the office."Ethan’s voice wasn't a suggestion. It was a low, jagged vibration against the curve of Madison’s ear. He slammed his palms against the metal server rack on either side of her head, pinning her. The cooling fans hummed a frantic, mechanical whir, a sharp contrast to the scorching heat radiating off his chest."The office was boring, Ethan. And I had a few billion to steal."Madison tilted her chin up. Her breath hitched. The silver light in her eyes flickered, reflecting off the dark obsidian of his pupils. She reached out, her fingers digging into the scorched wool of his tactical vest, pulling him closer until the heat between their bodies felt like a physical weight."You did the job," Ethan rasped. His jaw creaked as he ground his teeth. "Now pay up."He didn't wait for an answer. He reached down and gripped the hem of her silk dress. One violent jerk and the fabric shrieked, tearing down the middle. It fell away in ruined, white heaps. Ma
"They’re shorting our stock, Madison. We’re losing billions every hour! What the hell are you doing just sitting there?"Jonathan Jr. slammed the tablet onto the obsidian desk. The glass screen cracked under the force, but the bleeding red numbers remained visible, a jagged downward slope of a dynasty's wealth."I’m working, JJ. Screaming doesn't fix a decimal point."Madison didn't look up. She stood by the window of her penthouse office, but her focus was on the holographic interface projected against the glass. Her fingers twitched, dragging strings of code through the air. The office was cold. The HVAC system hummed, struggling against the heat radiating from the server towers humming behind the mahogany walls."Working? You’re watching the Clarke Empire vanish into a goddamn black hole! The Human Supremacist prick—whoever is behind this—they’re coordinated. It’s a fucking slaughter out there.""Then leave." Madison reached for the zipper of her dress. She pulled it down, the silk
"Madison... help me... please..."Averie’s voice was a wet, bubbling wreck. Black bile leaked from her shifting jaw, dripping onto the sterile white floor of the laboratory. Her bones made a sound like dry branches snapping as they lengthened, skin stretching until it turned a translucent, bruised purple. She wasn't human anymore. She wasn't a wolf either. She was a glitch."You really expect me to help you, Averie? After everything?" Madison stepped over a shattered glass vat, her boots crunching on shards. She didn't look away from the mess of limbs on the floor."I... I had to. They promised... they said I’d be like you. Eternal. Strong." Averie’s neck elongated, her spine arching until her head hit the floor at an impossible angle. "It hurts, Madi. Make it stop!""It’s going to stop," Madison said, her voice a flat, dead rasp. "But not the way you want it to.""Don't kill her yet!" Ethan shouted, charging through the reinforced steel doors. He skidded to a halt, his claws retracti
"Back to back, Ethan! Don't you dare let them flank us!"Madison’s voice sliced through the wet, meaty sounds of the slaughter. The Great Hall was a tomb. The air tasted like copper and old cave-rot. A Pale Wolf, its skin the color of a drowned corpse, lunged from the shadows. Madison didn't blink. She pivoted, her elbow smashing into the creature’s snout with a bone-deep crunch. The beast skidded across the obsidian floor, its milky eyes rolled back."I’m here, Madi! Just keep breathing!" Ethan roared. He was a mountain of scarred muscle and gold light. His claws were already out, dripping with black, oily ichor. He swiped at a monster trying to sneak through the ruins of the silver pillars. The Pale Wolf’s head detached from its neck in a spray of dark sludge.They stood in the center of the wreckage. Surrounding them, the First Brood moved in a rhythmic, predatory circle. Hundreds of them. Their elongated limbs clicked against the stone like a million spiders."They just keep comin







