The top of ōkamiden Tower was a skeleton—nothing but steel girders and half-finished concrete slabs, open to the wind and the sick yellow haze Chicago called a sky. No walls. No roof. Construction debris littered the edges: coils of rusted rebar, scattered bolts, a forgotten welding mask with one cracked lens. The city sprawled below like a wound, bleeding red and blue light through the smog. This high up, the air tasted wrong—metallic and cold, with an undercurrent of ozone from the neon signs forty stories down.

  Deathlok stood at the edge, one metal arm wrapped around Jackie.

  My sister hung limp in his grip, unconscious. Her blonde hair whipped in the wind, and I couldn’t see her chest moving from here. Blood had crusted along her hairline—fresh enough to glisten under the amber glow of the construction lights someone had left running. Panic clawed up my throat, sharp and hot.

  “Jackie!”

  Deathlok’s single red optic swiveled toward me. “She’s alive.” His voice came out flat, processed through a speaker grille where his throat used to be. No trace of Brick’s sarcasm left. No humanity at all. “For now.”

  I shifted, claws scraping concrete. My wolf form burned under my skin, ready to tear loose, but I forced myself to stay human. Mostly. Fur rippled along my forearms—coarse and dark—and my teeth ached where fangs wanted to push through. The transformation pulled at me like a second heartbeat, demanding release.

  “Put her down.”

  “No.”

  Wind howled between the girders, carrying the scent of rain that wouldn’t fall for another hour. My feet slid on loose gravel and construction dust. Somewhere below, a siren wailed, dopplering away into the haze.

  “Why are you doing this?” The words came out raw, scraping my throat. “Pandora brought you back. They turned you into—into this. You’re their attack dog now, and you don’t even care?”

  His optic brightened—red shifting toward white-hot. His grip on Jackie shifted, metal fingers adjusting their pressure, and my heart stopped until I saw her head loll to the side. Still breathing. Still alive.

  “I was always a dog,” Deathlok said. Servos whirred as he straightened, processing the statement. “Hunter. Killer. Corporate asset. The difference is I’m better at it now.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “You made me better.” His free hand clenched into a fist, hydraulics hissing like a snake preparing to strike. Pneumatic fluid leaked from a joint in his wrist, dark and viscous. “Faster. Stronger. You ripped out my weakness—my flesh, my doubt, my stupid pride. I should thank you.”

  The back of my tongue tasted like battery acid. The stench of his machinery mixed with Jackie’s blood made my stomach lurch. “They hollowed you out, Brick. You’re just spare parts.”

  “Survival requires adaptation.” He tilted his head, the motion too smooth, too mechanical—like a security camera tracking movement. The white human eye didn’t blink. Couldn’t anymore. “The corporation offers purpose. You offer chaos.”

  “I offer you a grave.”

  “Freedom’s a luxury for those who can afford it.” His speaker crackled on the last word, distorting into static before resolving. “You can’t.”

  My claws dug into my palms hard enough to draw blood. The scent hit my nose—copper and adrenaline and the electric tang of Deathlok’s exposed wiring. Beneath it, fainter: Jackie’s shampoo, the strawberry kind she’d used since we were kids. The normalcy of it made my chest ache.

  “Let. Her. Go.”

  He smiled. Or tried to. Half his face was still human, and the green skin pulled wrong over the chrome underneath, creating an expression somewhere between amusement and a scream.

  “Come, take her.”

  I lunged.

  Deathlok moved faster than I expected—chrome blur, hydraulic scream, the whine of servos pushed past recommended limits—and his fist caught me in the ribs. Something cracked. The impact launched me sideways into a girder hard enough to leave a dent. Metal sang, a high ringing note that cut through the wind. My spine lit up like a live wire, nerves screaming.

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  Get up. Get up now.

  I rolled, tasting blood and concrete dust, came up on my feet. My ribs ground against each other with every breath. He was already there, Jackie tucked against him like a shield, her arm dangling at an unnatural angle. His other arm raised, and I saw the plasma cannon built into his forearm—still glowing from charging—a second before it fired.

  I dropped.

  Heat scorched the air where my head had been, so close the tips of my hair singed. The blast punched a hole through a support beam behind me, molten edges glowing orange and dripping. The smell of super heated metal filled my nose.

  “You’re fast,” he said, recalculating. “Good.”

  I circled, low and tense, favoring my left side. My legs coiled beneath me, ready to spring. Blood ran hot down my side, soaking through my shirt. “I don’t want to fight you.”

  “Yes, you do.” His optic tracked my movement with mechanical precision, predicting trajectories. “You want to tear me apart. You want to fix your mistake.”

  “You’re not a mistake.” The lie tasted bitter, mixed with the copper tang of my blood. “You’re—”

  “A consequence.” He shifted Jackie to his other arm like she weighed nothing, her head lolling against his chrome shoulder. A trickle of blood ran from her nose. “Your consequence. Your creation. Your sin.”

  He charged.

  I met him halfway.

  Claw against chrome. Flesh against hydraulics. We collided in a crash of metal and snarls, and the smell of ozone and wet fur drowned out everything else.

  He swung. I ducked under, raked my claws across his exposed wiring. Sparks sprayed like fireworks, hot pinpricks against my skin. The scent of burning insulation joined the blood and ozone. He didn’t flinch. Didn’t register pain at all.

  His knee drove into my stomach. Air exploded from my lungs. I staggered, gagging, ribs screaming, and his hand locked around my throat.

  He lifted me off the ground.

  Concrete fell away beneath my feet. The city tilted, spun.

  “You’re weak,” he said. His grip tightened, cutting off my air, crushing my windpipe millimeter by millimeter. “Emotional. Human.”

  I clawed at his wrist. Metal. Can’t break metal. Can’t breathe.

  “And you’re predictable.”

  Gray static ate the edges of my sight. The city lights below blurred into meaningless color. I kicked, connected with something solid—his hip joint, maybe—but he didn’t budge. Didn’t even sway.

  Jackie. Focus. Jackie needs you.

  I stopped fighting his grip and raked my claws down, fast and vicious, across the glowing power core embedded in his chest. The casing cracked. Blue light spilled out, brighter than the construction floods.

  His optic flared white. His hand spasmed, fingers twitching with electrical feedback.

  I dropped, gasping, throat on fire, and rolled away before he could recover. Air tasted like heaven and blood.

  “Clever,” he said. His voice glitched, distorted, dropping an octave and back. Sparks danced across his chest plate. “But insufficient.”

  He raised the plasma cannon again. The barrel glowed brighter, charging faster this time.

  I was already moving—sprinting, ignoring the agony in my ribs, leaping, claws extended—and I hit him low, driving us both toward the edge.

  We went down in a tangle of limbs and steel. His back slammed into concrete hard enough to crack it, spider-web fractures spreading. Jackie tumbled free, rolling across the rooftop toward a pile of rebar. Her arm bent wrong. She still didn’t wake up.

  I lunged for her, fingers outstretched.

  Deathlok’s hand closed around my ankle and yanked.

  I hit the ground hard enough to crack the concrete beneath me, adding to the damage. My vision doubled, tripled. Blood filled my mouth—I’d bitten through my tongue. The taste of iron flooded everything.

  “Pathetic.”

  He dragged me backward, my claws scrabbling for purchase, tearing up chunks of concrete. I twisted, sank my teeth into his wrist, tasted oil and copper and something chemical that burned. Hydraulic fluid leaked onto my chin, hot and caustic.

  He hurled me sideways.

  I crashed into another girder. Something in my shoulder popped, hot and wrong, joint separating from socket. I pushed myself up anyway, legs shaking, right arm hanging useless. The world tilted thirty degrees and refused to straighten.

  Jackie lay crumpled ten feet away, still unconscious. A pool of blood—small, growing—spread beneath her head.

  Deathlok stood between us, silhouetted against the smog-choked sky. His damaged chest core flickered, casting erratic shadows across the concrete. Exposed wiring sparked. Hurt. Not enough.

  “Last chance,” he said. Fluid dripped from the tear in his wrist, pattering onto the ground. “Surrender accelerates the process.”

  I spat blood onto the concrete. It mixed with the construction dust, turning to dark mud. “Go to hell.”

  “Already there.” His optic dimmed, then flared. “You sent me.”

  He charged again, limping slightly now, hydraulics misfiring in his left leg—and this time I didn’t run. I met him head-on, claws tearing, fangs snapping, every ounce of guilt and rage and terror pouring out in a feral scream that reverberated off the girders.

  We tore at each other like animals at the edge of the world, and somewhere below, the city kept bleeding light into the haze.