Blood Circuit

She survived the lower sectors by never needing anyone. Then something inside her started needing blood.Mars has always known how to stay alive: hit first, trust rarely, and never let the city see you afraid. In the brutal lower sectors, that kind of strength is not a virtue. It is armor.Then a job goes wrong beneath the city, and Mars comes out changed.A classified Helix relic has bonded to her body, waking something violent, hungry, and impossible to control. It answers rage. It feeds on fear. And the more Mars tries to protect the only people she loves, the more dangerous she becomes to them.Mouse, a brilliant hacker with nowhere safe left to hide, and Ajax, a charming survivor with too many old debts, refuse to abandon her. But Helix is already moving. To them, Mars is not a person. She is evidence, property, and a threat they intend to recover before anyone learns what escaped beneath the city.Hunted through dead infrastructure, burned safehouses, black-market routes, and the hidden machinery beneath the city, Mars must decide what scares her more: losing control, or needing people enough to let them stop her.Blood Circuit is Book One of The Helix Cycle, a dark cyberpunk horror series about found family, bodily corruption, corporate containment, and the cost of staying human in a system built to turn people into assets.