Chapter 19 · Hounds of Steel

"Don't move. Just... don't fucking breathe," Lyra hissed, her voice barely a thread of sound.

She had her arm clamped across Darek’s chest, pinning him flat against the scorching metal of the hallway wall. The heat was radiating through his shirt, smelling of ozone and burnt rubber. Three inches away, the floor groaned. Something heavy—something with too many joints—was scraping its way toward them, its breathing sounding like a broken bellows pumping wet gravel.

"I can't exactly hold my breath while my arm is trying to melt through my shoulder," Darek whispered back, his voice strained. The arcane reactor in his prosthetic was pulsing a violent, erratic crimson, humming a frequency that made his teeth ache.

"Shut up," she snapped, her grip tightening. Her leather glove pressed into his ribs, and for a second, the proximity was more distracting than the monster. He could smell the sharp scent of gunpowder and a hint of something like cold rain on her skin. She was close—too close—