Chapter 24 · Take the Throne

The breaker blew with a crack like a snapped femur.

Then the freeze hit.

Not a draft. A solid wall of it. Blackwood winter dropped down the intake shaft at forty below and slapped the side of my face raw.

"Mom." Eli's voice was a thread about to snap. "Mom, I can't—"

I hit the concrete on my knees between them.

Maya first. She'd gone silent, and silent was always worse than screaming. Her lips were the color of dirty dishwater. Her small chest hitched, hitching on nothing, pulling air that wouldn't go down. Eli was propped on one elbow, his throat whistling so loud I could hear the rattle from three feet away. When he coughed, gray silver dust flecked his lower lip.

Garrett's dirty munitions. Vaporized silver.

The heat in the room was dead, and the airborne dust was cooling fast—getting heavy, sinking like powdered lead straight into two sets of six-year-old lungs.

"Look at me, baby." My voice came out flat and cold. Professional. The ugly part was that my hands never shook when everything went to hell. "Keep your eyes right on me."

I slammed the oxygen mask over Maya's mouth and hit the manual toggle.