Apex Five: Mech Elite novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: Four Cores

Ronan came down the stairs and put the steel tag in my hand.

It was warm from his skin.

"The tag is still whole," he said. "They cut the core. They never found the copy."

"Because I gave it to you."

"Because you gave it to me."

Hob was staring at the dead core on the bench.

"The tag is a seed," he said slowly. "It won't pulse by itself. It needs something big enough to grow in."

"Like what?"

"Like four years of you."

He looked up at me, and his eyes were wild.

"The Apex cores. The three they cut. Your pulse ran those frames for four years, and every one of them is soaked in it. Add your own dead core as the fourth, and we build a new blade core out of them and plant the tag in the middle."

"They're scrap."

"They're your scrap. You won them in the Ring."

"Alder voided that."

"Alder doesn't get to void what's on the yard floor," Hob said. "He had them trucked to the Pryce dock, the same night. They're sitting in a row at Dock Fourteen with a fence round them."

Mira stood in the doorway of the bunk room in a blanket, listening.

"There are guards," she said. "Six at night, with a dog. And a gate code."

"Do you have it?"

"I flew out of that gate for four years."

I looked at her.

She looked back.

"Get your boots," I said.

We went at one in the morning, in Hob's van with the lights off.

Dock Fourteen was a square of black concrete behind a chain-link fence, and the Apex Five lay in it in a row under the floodlights.

The scout's frame, the heavy's, Mira's and Dane's.

The first three were cut to pieces.

Dane's white frame was whole and chained down, its dead face turned toward the sky.

Mira punched in the gate code with a hand that was not quite steady.

← Chapter 18 · All chapters · Chapter 20 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend