Page 1 of Reckless Consequences

Prologue

Finn

I’m burning.Freezing. Drowning.

The virus moves through my system like a calculating opponent, each replicated cell a piece sliding across the board of my internal organs. I visualize its strategy unfolding—three steps ahead, anticipating my body’s every defense.

Fever fractures everything into kaleidoscope fragments—beautiful, broken, beyond reassembly.

“—can’t wait much longer.” Ryker’s voice cuts through the haze, each word arranged with the precision of a general positioning troops. Beneath his control, fear saturates the air—cinnamon and steel wrapped in desperation.

“She’ll make it.” Jinx’s certainty vibrates through the rough-hewn floorboards beneath my back. “Cayenne and Mona too. They’ll find a way.” His faith pulses like a heartbeat, steady despite the chaos surrounding us.

My eyelids refuse to obey. Each breath rattles thick and wet, like inhaling waterlogged cotton. Smoke still clings to Ryker’s skin—remnants of our burning sanctuary, of everything we abandoned in flames.

The virus unfolds across my system—an elegant sequence with death as its solution. It’s systematically targeting what makes me me, degrading my cells with methodical precision that feels almost personal.

“His fever’s climbing again.” Theo’s fingers trace cool paths across my forehead. But there’s something wrong with his touch—too hot, then too cold, vibrating with a frequency that makes my skin hum in response.

His scent gives him away before words can. Dark vanilla deepening to incense and midnight. The suppressants failing. Pre-heat approaching like an incoming storm.

The scent triggers a memory that cuts through fever—Theo at his piano, fingers dancing across keys while I charted probability curves from the doorway.

The precise moment I realized I loved him.

“Dammit.” Ryker shifts, boots scraping against uneven boards as he moves closer. “Theo, you need to?—”

“I’m fine.” Theo’s fingers tap an agitated rhythm against my chest, his melodic voice fracturing at the edges. “Focus on Finn.”

A wet cloth presses against my forehead, the gesture unlocking something deep in my chest.Pack. Still here. Still fightingwhile I drift through the mathematical certainty of my deterioration.

I sink again, time losing coherence. Seconds stretch into infinite sequences. Minutes compress into single data points. When consciousness surfaces, the argument has shifted.

“—should send Theo ahead with Quinn when he arrives. Get him somewhere safe before his full heat hits.” Ryker’s sentences arrange themselves like soldiers on a battlefield, each word positioned with intent.

“I’m not leaving.” Theo’s weight creates a depression in the mattress as he settles closer, his voice cracking like ice over deep water. “Not while Finn is—not until Cayenne?—”

“You’re already broadcasting.” Jinx’s cherry tobacco scent intensifies as he prowls the perimeter of my awareness. “Suppressants are completely shot. If Sterling’s team picks up your heat signature?—”

“Let them come.” Theo’s defiance slices through the fever-haze, making my pulse jump in response.

I try forming words, but my throat produces only a rasping wheeze that sends me spiraling into another sensory memory—Cayenne’s eyes across the chess board, bright with challenge. Her laughter when I countered her chaotic opening gambit with classic structure, the sound resonating in a way that made even my ordered mind want to embrace uncertainty.

My skin constricts cell by cell, as if it’s being flayed. Bones ache with an intensity that makes me wonder if they’re dissolving from inside out.

“Queen’s knight to rook five,” I mumble, the words scraping past swollen vocal cords like sandpaper on raw nerves. “Unexpected flanking attack...”

“What’s he saying?” Jinx’s breath fans against my cheek, smelling of gunpowder and protective rage.

“Chess moves.” The mattress dips as Theo shifts closer, his heat radiating against my side, a counterpoint to the virus-chill seeping through my marrow. “He’s seeing the game they never finished.”

My fingers twitch against the rough blanket, plotting invisible moves across a board only I can see. The last game with Cayenne—interrupted.

By everything collapsing like a house of cards.

“Counter-attack pattern... sacrifice appears vulnerable but creates opening...”

“He’s getting worse,” Ryker murmurs from his position by the door, but I’m lost in the strategy playing out behind my eyelids.

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