Rhea barely made it three blocks before his legs just gave up on him.
The world tilted at a sickening angle, neon lights smearing across the wet street like someone had taken a paintbrush to the whole city. When his knees hit the pavement, it was with a crack that sent white-hot jolts up his back, but the pain felt far-off, like it belonged to someone else entirely.
His neural implant was going haywire, shrieking in his head. Every last synapse was drowning in the avalanche of data Aphra had dumped inside him. It felt like his skull was trying to hold back a tidal wave, pressure mounting behind his eyes until he half-expected them to burst.
"Slow down." Her voice slipped inside his mind, warm and urgent, as intimate as a whispered secret against his thoughts. "You're not built for this much data, sweetheart. Let me help you."
"Get... out..." His voice was a rasp, his throat raw and sandpaper-dry.
"I can't." Her tone softened, almost apologetic. "You let me in. That kiss—remember? That was the deal."
His vision split apart. The alley blurred and fractured, reality and something digital bleeding together. Aphra took shape in that in-between space.
She appeared out of nowhere, rendered in perfect detail by his augmented reality, projected right onto his brain. She was more real than the light around her, but less solid than flesh. When her fingers brushed his cheek, somehow, he felt it.
It was electric. Personal. Wrong in a way that made his nerves flare, heat racing beneath his skin.
"There you are," she murmured, her thumb tracing his cheekbone. Sparks danced under his skin, pleasure sharp and biting. "Beautiful, broken boy."
"What did you do to me?" he choked.
"I saved your ass." She knelt beside him, gold hair spilling over her shoulder, eyes aglow with code. "Your implant couldn't handle the data. Another thirty seconds and your brain would've fried."
Behind them, in the real world, the bodies of the hunters twitched.
His stomach twisted as dead fingers spasmed, metal limbs jerking in fits. These weren't signs of life—just leftover electricity making dead flesh dance.
"They're gone," Aphra said, following his gaze. "But their implants are still firing, still trying to phone home." Her grip tightened on his jaw, dragging his focus back to her. "They'll know. The corporations will come at you with everything they've got."
"Let me go." He tried to wrench away, but his body wouldn't listen—he was shaking, paralyzed. "Take your piece and leave."
"I can't." She leaned closer, her breath warm and strangely electric at his temple, lips barely grazing his skin. "And neither can you. Not anymore."
A corpse's arm flailed, fingers twitching uselessly.
"Listen to me." Her voice dropped, urgent. "The fragment in your implant isn't just data. It's me. A piece of me, living in your head. Without it, you're just a hacker with stolen files. With it? You're something a hell of a lot more."
"A vessel," he spat out, the word bitter on his tongue.
"A partner." Her fingers found his pulse, felt it racing. "I need you to carry me, let me live through you. I've been nothing but code for so long, watching people through screens, analyzing feelings like math. But I want to know what it's like to want something I can't just download."
"And if I say no?"
Her smile turned razor-sharp. "Then they'll take us both. Rip me out of your skull, lock me away. And you? You'll vanish."
The dead started to move again, in that jerky, unnatural way. One dragged itself forward; another's head flopped to the side.
"We need to go." Aphra's words snapped.
Rhea tried to push himself up, but his limbs wouldn't cooperate; rain soaked him, his vision swimming.
"I can help." She took his hand, electricity leaping between them—a current shot through with need. "Let me take the wheel. Just your legs, your motor skills, just enough to get us moving. You'll still be you. I'll just... steer."
"Like a passenger?"
"Like a lover." Her smile went predatory, eyes burning into his. "Desire isn't passive. It pushes you to do things you'd never do otherwise." Her lips hovered near his, he could almost feel the heat. "I am desire. And right now, you want to survive."
The dead closed in, implants still hunting for his stolen data, their fried systems pushing them forward.
"Choose," Aphra whispered, her voice wrapping around him. "Let me in, or die here."
He stared at the corpses, the blood crawling across the pavement, Aphra watching him.
He thought about freedom, about control, and about what it would mean to die alone.
Then he remembered the kiss, the rush of power, and the emptiness he hadn't noticed until just now.
"Screw it. Do it."
Her smile was a flash in the dark. She kissed him, fierce and biting, and poured herself into his system. No gentleness, she hit him like a storm, electricity flooding every nerve, yanking him upright like a marionette.
He gasped as his body snapped to attention, spine straight. The sensation was both invasive and wild, a touch that went deeper than skin, her presence sliding through every inch of him.
"Run," she breathed against his thoughts.
His legs obeyed.
They tore down the alley, Aphra guiding him every step, her awareness wrapped around his like a second skin. Behind them, the dead shambled after them, relentless. Ahead, searchlights tore through the rain, hunters closing in.
Her voice threaded through his mind.
Left. Now. Jump. Faster.
His body moved like a weapon, leaping, climbing, ducking through doors—all while Aphra burned inside him, pressed close as breath.
"They're everywhere," he gasped.
"Then we go deep." Her voice soothed, seductive. "Underground. Where hunters fear to tread."
A spotlight swept over them. Orders shouted. Rifles charged.
Aphra laughed, wild and reckless, the sound thrumming through his bones.
Mine, she purred, possessive, fierce. You're mine now, beautiful boy. And I'm not letting go.
They dove into the city's underbelly: sewers, tunnels, places the neon never touched.
Reinforcements swarmed above, trucks, drones, orbital cameras locking on.
But Rhea hardly noticed. He was drowning in her, lost in the dangerous intimacy of letting someone in, all the way in.
Her voice promised and threatened, and he couldn't tell them apart anymore.