Chapter 34 · Locked Inside the Kill Zone

The deadbolt slammed home like a bone popping into place.

Owen kept his palm flat against the steel plate. Hard. Breathing rough through his teeth like he'd just cleared five flights.

"She's upstairs," he said, chest heaving. "Third floor. Vault door, keypad, flashlight. Willa knows what that lock means."

"I know what it means, too." I dumped my kit onto the runner. Gauze. Shears. Two tourniquets I'd rolled by hand at three in the morning because sleeping under his roof never took.

"Ruth." His voice dropped an octave, scraped raw. "This deadbolt only turns from our side. It doesn't open from the stairs. Not for them. Not for me."

"I know how a deadbolt works, Owen."

"Then you know what I just did."

Yeah. I did. He'd locked us into this wing with whatever was coming up those stairs. Willa got sixty seconds of silence behind reinforced steel. We got the crosshairs.

Soundproofing cuts both ways. Upstairs, that little girl could scream her lungs out and not a whisper would reach us. That was the design. That was the whole damn house.

"Two pairs of boots on the landing," I muttered, ears straining against the ringing silence. "Heavy.