Chapter 24 · Impact

"Brace!" Cade's arm locked around her ribs so hard she felt her spine crack.

"Brace with what," Mika screamed. "There's no seat, there's no—"

The pod hit.

Metal folded like paper. The world went sideways, then upside down, then sideways again, and Mika's head slammed into something that wasn't padded, wasn't soft, wasn't anything but wall. Sparks rained from the ceiling. Somewhere a warning voice kept saying hull integrity compromised, hull integrity compromised, in a calm robotic loop like it hadn't just watched them die a little.

"Cade." Her voice came out wrong, thick. "Cade, say something."

Nothing.

She crawled over twisted metal, over her own blood dripping off her chin onto the floor, and got a hand on his jaw. Warm. Breathing. Barely.

"Okay." Her hands were shaking so bad she could barely find the door release. "Okay, we're not dying in a can, get up, get up, get UP—"

The door blew outward on the third kick. Smoke, dust, daylight too bright after all that dark.