Chapter 7 · The Survivor

"I'm sorry," Ethan said, like the words could patch a hole.

The key sat flat in his palm, unturned and black beneath the emergency lights. Behind Mika, the tunnel mouth coughed smoke, then fire, heat shoving against her back like a hand.

"Turn it or don't," Cade snapped. Blood streaked his knuckles from the wall he'd punched through to get them here. "Just get us through that door."

"I can't do either." Ethan didn't move. "That's the problem."

Mika's ears still rang. Her father sagged against her side, one arm looped over her shoulder, dragging her down half a step at a time. He'd stopped talking somewhere in the tunnel.

That scared her worse than the fire.

"Ethan." She made his name sound like a question and a threat. "You knew. This whole time, you knew what happened to my parents, and you stood in a classroom teaching me stealth angles."

"I knew some of it." His hand closed tighter around the key. "Not enough to stop it. Not then."

"And now?" Cade stepped between them, chest heaving. "You going to use that thing on us, or tell us why you're pointing it like a gun?"

"It's not a gun."