Chapter 25 · Why Did It Stop

The bolt slams home like a bone setting.

Then the dark drops on us.

I don’t scream. Screaming’s a luxury. I burned through every scrap of mine three years back in a harbor supply closet, clutching a suspension letter while the blood pooled around my boots.

Owen’s hand catches my hip, pinning me flat against the metal shelving before my foot can lift.

Salt dust puffs up between our chests. Cold iron at my spine. Wet, sweating stone under my soles. And him—so close I get cedar, rain, and the black coffee he never finishes.

"Don't move," he mutters, his mouth right at my temple. "Stair lip is two feet to your right. You roll an ankle, I’m not carrying you up nine steps in the pitch black."

"I wasn't moving."

"You were tense enough to jump."

His heavy wool coat scrapes my bare forearm. Then his screen flickers alive, washing the vault in hard, cold blue.

Sacks of road salt stacked six feet high. A rack of rusted tools. A century of river damp clinging to the brickwork. And the door.

Heavy oak, strapped in black iron.