Long-press a paragraph to send danmaku
"Don't move."
Iris Vaughn's hand is on my chest before the elevator hum even stops. Her palm's warm through my shirt. Her eyes are locked on the seam where the doors are about to split.
"How do you know?" I ask.
"Because you grabbed me last time." She doesn't blink. "Half a second before they opened. You knew."
Last time. So she remembers. The loop didn't wipe her.
That changes everything.
"Step left," I say. "When the doors open, stay behind the panel."
"What panel?"
"The one that's about to have holes in it."
The elevator dings. Iris moves. The doors slide open and the gunfire starts exactly where I knew it would—chest height, three-round bursts, suppressed MP7s. I count two shooters. Both in the same positions as before. One behind the reception desk, one prone beside the potted palm that's too big for the lobby.
But the third shooter isn't there.
I shove Iris flat against the back wall and drop. A round punches through the elevator panel where my kidney was. That's new. Last time they didn't adjust for movement.
Someone's watching. Someone's learning.
"Cade." Iris's voice is steady. Too steady. "Who's running this?"
"Don't know yet."
"Liar."
I roll right and come up with my sidearm. Two shots. The guy at the desk goes down. The one by the palm tree swings left and I put one through his shoulder before he can correct. He drops the MP7. I'm already moving.
Iris is right behind me. I didn't tell her to follow.
"Stay in the elevator," I snap.
"You died in the elevator." She's got her heels off. She's holding them like weapons. "I'm not waiting for the reset."
"The what?"
"The reset. That's what you called it." She stops at the edge of the lobby, scanning. "You said it twice before you bled out. 'Twenty-seven. It's counting down. Someone's resetting the box.'"
I don't remember saying that. But I believe her.
The third shooter comes through the stairwell door. I catch the motion and fire. He ducks back. I hear boots on concrete. He's going up.
"Twelve," Iris says.
"What?"
"He's going to twelve. They always do."
I stare at her. She's standing in the middle of a lobby with two bodies and spent brass all over the marble, barefoot, holding Louboutins like knives, and she's talking about patterns.
"How many times have you done this?" I ask.
"I don't know. I don't loop." She looks at me. Really looks. Her eyes are the same green I remembered, the same ones that looked at me across a hotel bar in Kiev three years ago and said *You're not actually here for the conference, are you?* "But you do. And every time, you die on twelve."
My wrist burns. I glance down. The 27 is still there, red and raised like a brand. It hasn't moved.
"I got you out last time," I say.
"You got me to the stairwell." Iris crosses the lobby. She doesn't look at the bodies. She's done this before. "Then the doors opened on twelve and someone put a round through your spine. I dragged you into the hallway. You lasted maybe a minute."
"What did I say?"
"You asked why I was still here." She stops at the stairwell door, listening. "Then you said, 'He knows. He knows I'd come back for you.'"
The burn on my wrist flares. I feel it down to the bone.
"Who's 'he'?" Iris asks.
I don't answer. I'm running names. Faces. Operators I worked with. Operators I burned. There's a list. It's not short.
Iris pushes the stairwell door open. It's quiet. No boots. No breathing. Just the hum of the building's HVAC and the distant wail of a car alarm twelve stories down.
"You left me in Gdańsk," she says.
I freeze.
"You don't get to act surprised." She starts up the stairs. "You were my detail. You were supposed to get me out of the trade summit before the fire started. You got the ambassador. You got his aide. You left me in the service hallway with the doors chained."
"That's not what happened."
"Then what happened?"
I follow her up. My sidearm's still out. I'm scanning the landings. But part of me is back in Gdańsk, in the smoke, in the noise, in the split-second I had to choose who got out first.
"I came back," I say.
"After the ceiling came down."
"You were already gone. I saw you in the footage."
"What footage?"
"The security tapes. You walked out the front with the Polish deputy minister. You were fine."
Iris stops on the landing between three and four. She turns. Her face is pale.
"I never saw a Polish deputy minister," she says. "I woke up in a hospital in Berlin. They told me I was pulled out of the rubble by a passerby. No ID on him. No name. I had smoke inhalation and a fractured rib and burns on my hands from trying to break the chain."
She holds up her right hand. There's a scar across the base of her palm. Shiny. Old.
I've seen that scar. I saw it three years ago when she handed me a glass of vodka in Kiev and said *You look like you've seen worse.*
I never asked how she got it.
"Someone edited the footage," I say.
"Or someone wanted you to think I was fine." Iris turns and keeps climbing. "So you'd stop looking."
We hit the sixth floor. The stairwell door is propped open with a fire extinguisher. I signal her to wait. I move through, weapon up. The hallway's empty. Office doors closed. The lights are on but there's no one here. It's too clean. Too still.
"This isn't a hit," Iris says behind me.
"I know."
"This is a test."
"I know."
"Who's testing you?"
I don't answer. I'm looking at the elevator bank at the end of the hall. Both cars are stopped on twelve. The display panels above the doors are dark except for the floor numbers.
12. 12.
Iris sees it too. She moves up beside me. She's put her heels back on. She's holding a letter opener she must've grabbed from one of the desks. She's ready.
"You know who," she says quietly. "You've known since the doors opened the first time."
My wrist burns hotter. I glance down. The 27 flickers. For a second it looks like a 26. Then it steadies.
"Blake," I say.
Iris goes still.
"Noah Blake," I say again. "He was on my team in Yemen. I pulled him out of an overrun safehouse. He thinks I left him there on purpose. He thinks I traded him for the mission."
"Did you?"
"I got him out."
"That's not what I asked."
I look at her. She's not blinking. She's waiting.
"I made the call," I say. "The package was priority one. Blake was priority two. I secured the package first. By the time I got back to his position, he'd been captured. I got him out six hours later. He spent those six hours in a basement with three guys who really wanted to know where we'd hidden the case."
"Did he talk?"
"No."
"Then what's his problem?"
"He thinks I should've died with him instead of leaving him there at all."
Iris is quiet for a moment. Then she says, "He's right."
I don't argue. I don't have time.
The elevator on the left dings. The doors start to open.
I pull Iris back into the stairwell. The doors finish opening. The car's empty. But the display panel inside flickers once, twice, then locks onto a single number.
12.
Then the car starts moving. Up.
The second elevator dings. Same thing. Doors open. Empty car. Display flickers.
12.
It starts to rise.
Iris grips my arm. "He's calling us up."
"Yeah."
"What's on twelve?"
"I don't know. Last time I didn't make it past the door."
She looks at me. Her hand's still on my arm. Her pulse is hammering. I can feel it through her fingertips.
"If you die again," she says, "do I loop with you?"
"I don't know."
"Then don't die."
"That's the plan."
She almost smiles. It's the same smile she gave me in Kiev when I told her I wasn't actually a conference attendee and she said *Good. I hate conferences.*
Then the lights go out.
Emergency backups kick in. Red. Dim. The stairwell looks like a tomb.
Iris's grip tightens. "Cade."
"I'm here."
"He's changing the rules."
"I know."
Above us, a door opens. Boots on concrete. Multiple sets. Descending.
I pull Iris down to the landing. I check my magazine. Ten rounds left. I've got one spare mag. Twenty-two rounds total. If Blake sent more than two shooters down this stairwell, we're not making it to twelve.
The boots get closer. I hear radio chatter. Low. Clipped. Professional.
Then I hear a voice I haven't heard in three years.
"Cade." It's coming through a speaker somewhere above us. Blake's voice. Calm. Almost friendly. "You're doing better this time. You got Iris past the lobby. That's new."
Iris looks at me. I shake my head. Don't answer.
"But you're still thinking like it's a straight fight," Blake continues. "It's not. It's a box. And I built it for you."
The boots stop. I count three sets. Maybe four. They're one flight up.
"Here's the deal," Blake says. "You've got twenty-seven loops. That's what the counter's for. Every time you die, it drops. When it hits zero, the loop locks. You stay dead. Iris stays dead. Everyone in this building stays dead. Forty-three people, Cade. Cleaning staff. Security. The intern on eighteen who's still trying to finish her pivot tables."
Iris's face goes white.
"You've used one loop already," Blake says. "You've got twenty-six left. If you want to know why you're here, get to twelve. If you want to know why Iris is here, ask her why she bought a company I built and tore it apart for parts."
Iris's hand drops from my arm.
I look at her. She's not looking back.
"Iris," I say quietly.
"Not now."
"What did you do?"
"I said not now."
The boots start moving again. Closer. I hear a safety click off.
Blake's voice comes back. "Doors open in three."
I look up. The stairwell door above us is closed.
"Two."
Iris pulls me toward the hallway door. I follow. We slip through. I ease it shut.
"One."
The elevator at the end of the hall dings. Both cars. Same time. The doors open.
The display panels above them flicker. Every number scrolls past. Fast. Then they all stop.
12.
Every single floor display in the hallway flips to 12. The office doors. The emergency exit signs. The digital clock on the wall.
All of them. 12. 12. 12.
Iris backs up until she hits the wall. Her eyes are locked on the elevators. "He's not letting us leave."
"No," I say. "He's telling us there's only one way out."
I look down at my wrist. The counter's still there. Still red. Still 27.
But as I watch, it flickers. The 7 glitches. Drops.
26.
Iris sees it. She grabs my wrist. Her fingers are cold.
"What did you just do?" she whispers.
"Nothing."
"Then why did it—"
The stairwell door behind us slams open.