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Malfunctioning tracks
Last Updated:
2025-12-14 23:27:43
Latest chapter
The cursed mate's return Challenges ahead
Maia's povThe building feels different when I’m inside my own head.Kael is at my side, matching my pace without asking where we’re going. He never asks. He learned years ago that if I hesitate long enough to explain, something worse is already happening.Eli’s footsteps slap unevenly behind us. He’s scared. Not useless-scared. The kind that keeps you alive if it doesn’t turn into panic.The corridor narrows, walls pulling inward, not collapsing but deciding. I feel the shift before it happens, like a muscle tightening.“They’re sealing behind us,” Eli gasps.“I know,” I say.I don’t slow down.The lights stutter, then settle into a dull amber. Pre-Council. The kind they used before they realized fear worked better in red.Kael glances at me. “You okay?”The question is almost laughable.I am holding the spine of a city together with borrowed breath and half-remembered code. I am running toward the place where they taught me how to disappear. I am feeling things that were locked away
The cursed mate's return Never expected the blast
Kael's povSomething went wrong before it went loud.I felt it in the way the floor vibrated under my boots, really shallow, like a skipped heartbeat. Maia felt it too. Her fingers tightened around mine, not in fear, but in warning.“This isn’t just the Council,” she said quietly.The corridor ahead dimmed, then brightened again, the lights stuttering like they couldn’t decide who was in charge anymore. A seam split along the wall to our right, metal pulling away from itself with a shriek that set my teeth on edge. Heat bled out, sharp and dry.“Backup command layer,” I muttered. “They buried it deep.”Maia shook her head. “No. This one’s older.”That was worse.The Council didn’t keep antiques unless they were afraid of them.The wall gave way with a low, violent crack, and someone stumbled through the opening, coughing hard. I shoved Maia behind me without thinking, already reaching for the sidearm I’d lifted off a guard earlier.The figure dropped to one knee, palm braced against
The cursed mate's return Red alert
Kael's povThe building didn’t explode. That was the first thing that told me Maia was right.Instead of collapsing into chaos, the neural wing reorganized. Walls shifted with a low, architectural groan, panels sliding into new configurations like the place was rethinking itself in real time. Maia lifted her head from my chest.“I can feel them,” she said. “Every subsystem. Every failsafe they buried under me.”Footsteps echoed from the far corridor—measured, coordinated. Council security. Not panicked. Not yet. They still thought this was containment drift, not sovereignty loss.“We don’t have much time,” I said.She nodded. “We don’t need much.”She stepped forward, pulling me with her, toward the open doors. The hallway beyond wasn’t the one I remembered. The floor pulsed faintly with light, responding to her presence like a biometric key rewritten at the molecular level.As we moved, screens along the walls flickered to life—old footage, suppressed logs, memory shards the system
The cursed mate's return Malfunctioning tracks
Kael's povThe alarms didn’t mean what they used to. Once, they’d meant compliance, containment. Order snapping back into place.Now they sounded… wrong, out of sync like the building couldn’t decide whether to cage Maia or kneel to her.She was shaking hard beneath my hands, breath stuttering as memory after memory tore through her. I could feel it in the way her fingers dug into my wrists not really like fright but recognition. Pattern-locks collapsing, emotional firewalls melting under their own weight.“Kael,” she whispered, voice fractured, layered with echoes that weren’t quite hers. “I can see it. All of it.”“I know,” I said, leaning closer so she wouldn’t lose me in the noise. “Stay with my voice. Just mine.”Her eyes fluttered shut.Then snapped open again, focused.“They didn’t just erase memories,” she said, fast now, clarity cutting through the pain. “They rerouted them. Buried them under behavioral dampeners. Every time I chose someone over the Council, they punished the
The cursed mate's return System fault
Kael's povThe elevator didn’t shudder like I expected.It moved smoothly, reverently like it was afraid of her.Numbers climbed along the panel, but the floors weren’t labeled. They hadn’t been, even back then. The Council didn’t believe in naming places where they erased people. Names made things harder to forget.Maia’s grip on my hand stayed firm, but I could feel the tremor in her fingers now that the doors were closed. Alone. Contained. Ascending.“This is where it happened,” she said softly.Not a question.I nodded. “The core’s three levels up. This shaft feeds straight into the neural wing.”She swallowed. I felt it through her hand, like an echo traveling up my arm and into my chest.“I remember the walls,” she murmured. “I don’t remember what they did to me inside them.”“That’s not an accident.”The lights inside the elevator shifted from warm to sterile white. Thin lines of text began to scroll across the mirrored surface of the doors, system diagnostics, authorization pi
The cursed mate's return Strike the current
Kael's povThe blackout didn’t last long.Emergency lights shuddered awake overhead, thin red strips lining the hallway like old scars. Ryn groaned beside me, clutching his ribs. Kieran checked the corners for exits. He always did that when he was afraid, and he was terrified now.Maia stood in front of the elevator panel, unreadable, her fingers curled into tight fists at her sides. She didn’t look back at us. She didn’t need to.The air felt wrong. Too thick. Like the building recognized her.“Maia,” I said, softer than I meant to. “Talk to us before the system wakes up fully.”She didn’t turn. “If I talk, I’ll second-guess it.”“And if you don’t?” Ryn asked. “You’ll walk straight into the data choke point without a tether.”“That’s the point,” she said.I felt something cold settle under my ribs. A familiar feeling. The kind I used to get back when we worked together in the city, long before any of this. Back when she’d walk into a meeting with Council executives and pretend she ha
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