Chapter 28 · Ground Zero

The pier smells like rust and dead fish. Midnight came fifteen minutes ago and I'm still sitting in Locke's car two blocks away, staring at the warehouse district through the windshield. The same district where his mother died fifteen years back.

"You're not going alone," Locke says for the third time. His hand's on the gear shift. Knuckles white.

I don't answer. The phone's in my lap with that text still glowing. Pier Nine. Midnight. Alone or everything burns.

"Ivy."

"I heard you the first two times." I shove the door open before he can grab my wrist. Cold air hits my face. "Stay in the car."

"Like hell."

But I'm already out. Gravel crunches under my boots and I can hear him swearing behind me, door slamming, footsteps catching up. I don't turn around. The old cannery looms ahead, half the windows busted out, metal siding peeling like dead skin. CONDEMNED stickers plastered across the chain-link fence but the gate's hanging open.

Someone wants us inside.

Locke grabs my elbow. "You walk in there, you don't walk out."

"Then why are you following me?"

His jaw works. No answer. We both know why.

I slip through the gate.