He tried to scream. But the Pawnbroker had already pawned his voice to a collector of silences.
And now, every time someone in Veridia City pawned their deepest wound—their first heartbreak, their father’s disappointment, their stillborn dream—it was Kaelen who felt it. A thousand lives of pain, flooding through the empty socket where his heart used to be. xxxpawn
“I need enough for a new cortex spike and a clean ID,” he said. He tried to scream
“Deal,” Kaelen whispered.
“That’s insulting.”
Desperate, he unclasped the locket from his neck. Inside was no picture—just a tiny, dried shred of umbilical cord. His last link to his mother, who had sold him to a tech cartel when he was three. their father’s disappointment