Chapter 15 · Untitled Chapter

Hands closed around my collar and hauled me up before I knew which way was up.

"On your feet."

A boot landed beside my fingers. I shoved myself backward and hit something hard and curved, ridged like the inside of a hull. Metal floor. Metal ceiling. A low hum ran through both, steady as a heartbeat.

"Where's—" My throat scraped raw. "Where's Cade?"

"Quiet."

Boots circled me. More than two. Maybe six.

Then I heard him.

"Mika." Cade's voice came from my left. Rough. Close. "I'm here. I'm—"

A grunt cut him off. Metal screamed against metal.

I twisted toward the sound. A hand caught my hair and snapped my head forward.

"Eyes ahead."

"Touch me again and lose the hand," I said.

The guard laughed near my ear. "She still has teeth."

"I said look ahead."

I looked anyway.

Cade knelt six feet away, his wrists locked behind him in glowing blue cuffs. Two men in dark plating stood over him, weapons humming with the same low note as the walls.

"Don't touch her," Cade said.

A guard drove a fist into his shoulder.