First Blood on Delancey

He could break armor with his hands now, but misinformation moved through families, workplaces, and lonely bedrooms where no punch could reach. The realization humbled him more than any defeat. Saving bodies would never be enough if fear kept teaching those bodies to hate one another. That night, alone for three minutes in a stairwell that smelled of bleach and old rain, Kieran let himself feel the terror he had postponed. His hands shook. His teeth hurt. Beneath his skin, stolen heat, borrowed resonance, and half-understood alien geometry pressed against the limits of being twenty-five and exhausted. He thought of the life he might have had if the Core had never opened: late rent, cheap noodles, jokes with other riders, maybe school someday, maybe