Chapter 26 · Breach and Scatter

The drill chewed through the third slab, and the whole cold-storage floor jumped.

"Ten seconds," I said. "Maybe eight."

Eli's small fists were white in my collar. Maya hung dead weight over my other shoulder, gray-lipped, shallow breaths ticking against my collarbone. One. Two. Three.

Julian was down on both knees in the center aisle with six inches of silver spike shoved straight through his back. Thick, oily black wolf-blood ran down his spine and pooled in the drain grate.

He forced his chin up. His eyes flashed wet gold. "Get them out."

"Shut up. I'm working."

"Nora—"

"Don't." I yanked the trauma shears off the magnetic rail and sliced his tactical shirt off his shoulders. The spike had punched clean under the left blade and out below the ribs. The tissue around the puncture was charred purple, smelling like spoiled meat and scorched iron. "This stays in. You pull it now, you bleed out in thirty seconds and I have to explain your corpse to your council."

My hip radio clicked. Theron's voice, raspy and choked with grit. "North tunnel's gone. Whole ceiling dropped at the first bend."

"Then clear it."

"Nora, there's forty tons of—