(Y/N) Winters lives alone on the outskirts of a sprawling futuristic city, keeping her head down and trying to survive. One night, she finds Glen — a government-engineered cyborg soldier — collapsed and bleeding in her barn, his mechanical parts sparking and his human parts bruised. He’s a wanted fugitive, and hiding him could get her killed.

But there’s something about him — the haunted look in his human eye, the way he flinches when she gets too close — that makes her want to help. As she patches him up, she realizes he’s more human than the people who created him.

The storm hit hard that night. Rain slammed against the tin roof of (Y/N)’s little farmhouse, and the wind howled like a living thing. She almost didn’t hear the sound outside — the faint crash, like metal on wood.

(Y/N) grabbed her flashlight and pulled on her jacket, cursing under her breath. Probably just another drone crashing out in the fields. The government didn’t maintain them out here anymore.

But when she slid the barn door open, she froze.

There, in the mud, was a man.

At least, he looked like a man.

He was big, broad-shouldered, dressed in torn combat gear that was stained with blood and rain. A jagged wound ran down one side of his face, and where the flesh ended, sleek metal plating gleamed under the beam of her light. Sparks flickered at his ribs, where torn armor revealed a nest of wires and synthetic muscle.

He was a cyborg.

A soldier.

A runaway.

He blinked up at her with one pale, almost-glowing eye. The other eye — human — looked… scared.

“Don’t—” His voice was hoarse, crackling like static. “Don’t call them.”

(Y/N)’s heart thudded in her chest. Every warning on the news told her what to do — report sightings, stay away, let the military clean up their own mess.

But the way he was curled on the ground, shaking and bleeding, he didn’t look like a weapon. He looked… broken.

She tightened her grip on the flashlight, her breath fogging in the cold.

“You’re hurt,” she said carefully. His jaw clenched. “I’ll be gone by morning. Just—don’t turn me in.” For a long moment, (Y/N) just stood there, her mind spinning. This was dangerous. Stupid. If anyone found out she’d sheltered a fugitive cyborg, she’d be arrested — maybe worse.

But then she saw the way his hand trembled when he tried to push himself up. His human hand.

Against every shred of common sense, she crouched down beside him.

“Come on,” she said softly, reaching for him. “If you die out here, they win. Let me help you.”

He hesitated — like no one had ever offered him that before — then let her take his arm.

And that was the night everything changed.