Chapter 4 Splint

Spiral

He watched her through the static haze of an old street camera, tapping into one of the city's forgotten systems. Grainy footage, low-resolution, but he knew the tilt of her head, the rhythm of her walk.

Isla.

Even pixelated, she was art. Moving through the world like it didn't deserve her.

Because it didn't.

The skin around his implants itched. His spine ticked where steel met nerves.

She wasn't safe.

She didn't know what was coming.

He did. He'd traced the pulse of it in underground forums, whispers stitched through prison contacts and encrypted messages. Someone was asking about the girl again. Not by name, never by name. But with eerie precision.

Portfolio of:

Height, features, last known district.

They were circling. Closing in on her like vultures.

And she still wore that secondhand jacket, still worked that same damn shift under flickering neon.

If she died before he could fix it before he could warn her…

His whole body would break apart. Every piece of him was already unraveling, bones and wire both, because he was holding back. Staying in the shadows.

But the truth was.

He wanted to be seen.

Wanted her to look at him like he mattered.

—————————————

Isla

The guy with the metal hand came back to the gas station again. Same guy. Same twitchy eye.

He didn't buy anything. Just loitered. Watching her too long.

She didn't ask questions anymore.

The feeling had grown roots of an unease that clung to her spine like cold breath. She started locking the staff restroom door from the inside. Stopped walking home, even though she couldn't afford the rideshare every night.

Sometimes she swore she saw him. Not the metal-hand guy.

But the other one.

The one with the broken voice. The one from the night she didn't talk about. The one who killed someone in front of her and then looked at her like she was fragile glass, like he wanted to keep her.

She'd told herself that was some sort of shock. Trauma. A delusion made of blood and adrenaline. But her instincts screamed louder than logic.

She wasn't just being followed.

She was being studied.

——————————————————

Spiral

He'd upgraded the audio filters in his ear. Could hear heartbeats through walls now. Picked hers once when he got too close.

It was beautiful. Fragile. So human.

He should leave her alone. He knew that. Told himself that multiple times.

But she was in danger.

And none of these people. None of these greasy, synthetic cowards she worked around with deserved her!

She wouldn't understand right away. No, she wouldn't.

Maybe she'd scream again?

But he'd save her anyway.

He always had.

——————————————————

"Isla!"

Her boss yelled again about inventory counts.

Some customers called her a bitch because the synthetic tobacco machine jammed. Tossing their drinks, their food, their change.

She kept her head down. She kept breathing one deep breath at a time. Yet, that feeling didn't leave.

It just wouldn't go away.

The city hadn't changed, but Isla had.

She sat on the edge of her cot in the flickering dark, the overhead light stuttering like a heartbeat out of rhythm. Her apartment smelled like old dust and rotting fruit. The peach she'd saved was collapsing into itself on the counter, bruised, leaking a slow amber syrup onto the stained metal.

Her fingers twitched.

Every corner felt watched.

She hadn't seen him. Not up close. She hopes that will never happen. But she felt it. Somewhere between her skin and her breath, like a static charge under the surface.

That man.

That metal-laced monster.

The one who killed someone in front of her like it was nothing. Like snapping a twig.

No. She dug her nails into her palms. She didn't want to think about him. Not his voice, not his face. Not even the way he'd looked at her like she was his.

He hadn't touched her.

But his eyes had.

His voice had.

And that was enough to feel disgusted.

And whatever piece of her had trembled under it. That terrified her more than the blood.

Isla stood quickly, heart racing. Needing to do one last security check in her home The window was still locked and the hallway was empty. No strange cars, no lingering shadows.

But she could feel it.

Not just that she was being watched.

That she was wanted.

——————————————————

Two blocks away, Spiral leaned against the rusted skeleton of a billboard, one boot braced against steel. The city was loud, bright and stupid! But he knew how to slip past the noise. He'd grown up here, bled here, vanished and reemerged as something stronger. Something better.

She was still alive. Still inside.

"Good."

His jaw ticked as he lit a cigarette with shaky fingers. He didn't smoke often anymore. Not since the implants began messing with his lungs. But tonight, he needed the burn. That taste of fire to remind him he still had a tongue and that he still had something human left.

Because when he thought of her, it wasn't logical. It wasn't clean or controlled.

It was a pull.

Not lust. Not really. Something older, stranger. Like she'd been threaded into his wiring without his consent. Like her name had been soldered into his ribs in the prison workshops, between the reinforced bone plates and neural ports.

He didn't even know her name.

But he knew the sound she made when she breathed through panic.

He'd replayed it a hundred times.

____________________________

Isla sat back down, thumbing through the classified ads on her cracked tablet. No real job offers, just scams and hollow gigs that would barely pay for pills or rent. Her boss at the gas station had started locking the doors behind her, like she was the thief.

She was close to broke. Her last paycheck had bounced. She stared at a listing.

"Human trials. Medical compensation: 15,000 credits. Risk disclosed on site."

No address. No contact name. Just a number and a promise. Isla hovered over the screen, heart thudding.

"Fifteen thousand."

But then her mind flickered back to the bloody alley. A man with metal fingers wrapped around a screaming throat. The boot pressed into a ribcage until it cracked. The sound was something no one ever wanted to imagine.

She dropped the tablet.

Her knees hit the floor as she choked down a sob. "No. No, I'm not going to fall apart! I'm not!"

She had to focus and convince herself she wasn't crazy. She wasn't going crazy. Her Isla felt it, every bit of her screaming that someone was watching her. Maybe the men from the alley? But she had seen too much. She had to be careful.

She went to the bathroom, flipped the faucet on, and let cold water soak her wrists. Splashing her face to get some relief, some wakening. The mirror was cracked, showing three versions of herself.

Only one of them looked stable.