Chapter 16 · Blackout Warrant

The lights died with a dry metallic click. My scalpel was already pressed against his windpipe.

Julian didn't flinch. His pulse hit the cold steel, steady and maddeningly slow, like a man waiting on a train. Mine was rattling against my ribs like a trapped bird.

"Easy," he murmured.

"Don't test me." I leaned in a fraction of an inch, just enough for body heat to bloom along the edge. No blood yet. "You're the one who smashed my lock."

"I knocked first."

He had. Twice, flat-palmed, neat as an eviction notice. Right before he'd spread his fingers across my stainless-steel prep table, pulled his collar wide, and showed me six years of jagged silver tracks carved into his own flesh. Neat as suture line.

I’d said something vicious about it. I’d meant every syllable.

The emergency circuit was supposed to trip within three seconds. It didn't.

One Mississippi. Two.

"Grid’s down," Julian said, his gravel voice dropping lower. "Not weather. Storms don't kill air scrubbers."

He was right, and bile surged up my throat. The ventilation fans had wound down to dead silence. No scrubbers meant no scent suppression.