Jay never asked to be special. In Vesper City — a brutal, neonlit world ruled by gangs, corruption, and a mysterious force called the Engine — survival is the only goal. But when Jay is marked by the Engine during a catastrophic surge, he becomes something the city has never seen before: an anomaly. A glitch. A living conduit of power the Jackals will kill to control.

Barely clinging to life, Jay is taken in by a small, fiercely loyal group — Mia, Malik, Lena, Rafe, and Seraphine — who risk everything to keep him alive. As Jay’s health collapses and the Engine’s influence grows, the group flees through tunnels, ruins, and corrupted districts, fighting both the city and the supernatural force awakening inside him.

Mia becomes Jay’s anchor, refusing to let him slip away even as the Engine tries to claim him. Their bond deepens through every neardeath moment, every collapse, every breath Jay struggles to take. When the Engine finally drags Jay into its realm — a surreal, shifting world of light, memory, and destiny — Mia follows him, tearing through illusions and fighting the Engine itself to bring him home.

Jay learns the truth: he survived the first Engine surge as a baby, and the Engine has been waiting for him ever since. It wants to merge with him. To make him the next Engine. To turn him into something not quite human.

But Jay chooses Mia.

Mia chooses him.

And together, they break the Engine’s hold.

They return to Vesper City shattered but alive until Jay wakes up somewhere impossible.

A field in Terre Haute.

A world with no Vesper City.

No Jackals.

No Engine.

Just reality.

Or something pretending to be.

Jay fights his way back through the glitch, crossing the line between worlds until he returns to the Velvet Fang where Mia wakes, sees him, and breaks into tears. He’s real. He’s home. And though the Engine’s mark still pulses faintly beneath his skin, Jay knows one thing with absolute certainty:

Whatever comes next, he won’t face it alone.