13. BurningBright #2
The corporate presence in the city is definitely heavier today.
VikkCorp drones fly lower, their spotlights lingering.
Checkpoints suddenly appear in random places where I normally walk freely.
I pass a group of “non-citizens,” our mayor’s name for the homeless people who live and die on the streets, who don’t own a home, who don’t work for the Corporation.
It looks as if they’re once again being rounded up by the CIC and stuffed into sleek black vans.
No one really knows where they’re taken.
I hope it’s to a different city and not to their death, but something inside me knows better.
Bile rises in my throat to think about it; perhaps it is an omen of what’s coming.
Outside, the rain begins to soak through my hoodie, my hair clumping in neon strands, slapping against my face as I hurry my stride.
I cut through TheSquare, literally an open space of concrete full of holographic ads, giant towering screens, and benches arranged in groups for “sanctioned” gatherings.
Today a crowd has gathered, shoulder-to-shoulder beneath glowing TechBrellas, all eyes focused on a corporate newsfeed looping across every available surface.
From the side of glass towers to the slick walls of alleys, everything is alive with moving images and targeted propaganda, even the pavement beneath my boots flickers with animated branding—the usual suffocating noise brought to you by VikkCorp.
Above us, the elevated bullet train screams past, hauling commuters toward other districts, some of them luxury ones I’ll never see.
I glance up at today’s feed, a face filling it as the VikkCorp logo slams across the bottom in a wash of sterile white and bright red. The reporters shove each other, their compact digital microphones waving in the air, hungry for a sound bite from the person being interviewed.
It can’t be. My heart stutters, like it forgot its rhythm.
The cameras zoom in to frame him, and it’s both devastatingly and infuriatingly unmistakable.
He stands beneath the harsh lights of a VikkCorp press conference, dressed in the same black jacket cut to perfection.
His white dress shirt is slightly rumpled at the collar, as if he dressed in a hurry or stopped caring sometime this morning.
It frames the dark ink curling up his throat like a red flag warning label.
His hair falls into his eyes in that same careless way I saw the other evening at STATIK.
Kael.
The voiceover labels him Dr. Kael Ryudon, Head of VikkCorp Neural Systems Division. He’s not a medical doctor. A scientist. Doctor...cold, clinical words meant to describe corporate supremacy.
The camera catches what the questions can’t, the way his jaw locks between answers, his fingers running through his hair anxiously.
He barely looks at the reporters, his gaze fixed somewhere past them, like he’s enduring rather than participating.
The patience in his eyes isn’t calm, but lethal.
He’s clearly uncomfortable being on the feeds, tolerating the attention when he would rather be elsewhere.
He has the look of a man who has learned how to survive by saying very little and controlling everything. The same dark entity I felt watching me from the shadows at STATIK.
Everything locks into place with a sickening clarity.
The danger, the power, the lie I didn’t know I was engaging.
The man who approached me in STATIK. The man in my dream, the dark dragon, his hand brushing mine, eyes glowing molten. The pull I can’t explain, the ache in my chest when I think of him.
It’s him. The guy Eli was learning about; the child prodigy.
Kael Ryudon is everything I despise. He’s one of them—polished, obedient, and untouchable. He belongs to the machine. VikkCorp’s golden weapon, ruthlessly efficient and aimed straight at people like me.
He should disgust me on sight, a handsome devil wrapped in power and privilege. Yet my chest tightens, because nothing about him feels as simple as the role he’s in.
Another thought coils in my gut, sharp like cut glass: He built it. All this technology and automation, it’s all his evil creation.
I’m so fucked.
I stand frozen, drenched in the glow of his image while the crowd around me keeps moving, oblivious. My lips part but no sound comes out. I should feel rage. Instead, I feel gravity. A dangerous tether pulling me closer to him.
His darkness calls to something in me I can’t name. Every line of his body radiates control, a dangerous man hidden behind a calm face and a tailored suit, and stars help me, I want to fall into it. The thought makes me dizzy, heat climbing under my skin.
I press my palms hard against the railing in front of me, forcing myself to breathe as I realize this can go no further.
Because now I know this...
He’s the one that hunts anomalies. He’s the secret lab, the boss of Ember, the man feared by U21s and the rebellion. Enemy number one, besides VikkCorp, of course.
When he comes for me, and he will, it won’t be with tenderness. What will happen when he realizes what I am, what I can do? When the lust fades away, will only hate be left? Will I be the destroyer of his entire world? Or will he literally destroy me?
The feed continues. Kael’s face is severe, his voice carrying through TheSquare, calm but commanding. He’s discussing cybernetics and robots; more corporate presence we don’t need in our lives. The crowd hangs on his carefully chosen words.
I can’t breathe. Why does he do this to me?
“Lyra?”
I flinch. Ash walks up beside me, smothering my personal space, smelling faintly of smoke, leather, and musk, his jacket dripping rain. His grin is lazy, but his eyes flick up to the screen, then down to me, bright and knowing.
“Well, well,” he purrs, folding his arms, “didn’t peg you for the type to fall for a corporate poster boy.”
My jaw tightens. “I’m not. I had no idea.”
Ash tilts his head, smirking like he’s caught me red-handed. “Your pulse says otherwise. I can feel it.” His face tilts closer to mine. “Everywhere.” His eyes slide downward.
I shift from one foot to the other, as heat flushes up my neck. I tear my gaze away from the screen, but Kael’s image lingers behind my eyes. His obsidian eyes, that pull, the way I felt meeting him at STATIK...ugh, my dream.
“I’m just...curious,” I say softly. “You know that night we all met at your show? I just felt like I already knew him from somewhere. Deja Vu maybe?”
Ash whistles low. “Know him, huh? From where? The way you’re staring, you’d think you’ve seen him naked...or would like to.”
Yes, please. My stomach flips as I run through scenarios in my head where we kiss, my tongue tracing those tattoos down...
No, no, Lyra, stop it now! My DataLINK pings and begins to blur with pink hearts melting downward.
“Shut up.” I shove his shoulder like a schoolgirl.
He leans closer, his voice brushing my ear like warm smoke. “I’d know if you were dreaming about me, Lyra. But him? He’s in your head. I can feel it pulsing through you.”
I snap my gaze to him. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
His smirk fades just enough to show me he does know.
He sees it, feels it, senses it. Damn his magic.
“He’s like a brother to me. Our souls and trauma have bonded us since childhood.
” He remains close, his voice dropping lower until it’s meant only for me.
“I know him better than anyone. I know the weight he carries, and I know when two souls are circling in the same gravity, whether they want to or not.”
The crowd shifts around us, unconcerned, while the feed drones on about VikkCorp progress reports but nothing about the two giant anomalies shining bright last night.
All I can hear is the thundering of my own heartbeat, split between the beautiful man beside me with light in his veins and the beautiful man on the screen with shadows in his eyes.
And I hate that deep down, I already know which one I’d burn for.