Chapter 21 · Compliance

"Comfortable in there?" The voice slid through the two-inch gap, closer now, like whoever it was had crouched down to talk right into the crack. Not Rhys. Rhys sounded like money pretending to be patient. This one sounded bored, and bored was worse.

Vale had the gun up before I finished flinching. Two hands, elbows locked, muzzle level with the strip of hallway light. "Who's that."

"Depends who's asking." Metal scraped the outside of the lever housing, slow, almost lazy. "You two smell like you've been busy in there."

My stomach dropped past my knees. He could smell us. Through a foot of steel and a two-inch gap, he could smell exactly what had almost happened on this floor.

"Rhys send you?" Vale's voice had gone flat. The kind of flat that meant he was counting rounds against how much good they'd do against a door.

"Nobody sends me anywhere." The scraping stopped. "I let myself in."

I grabbed the torn sleeve, the one still damp at the shoulder, and Vale shifted his weight without looking at me, putting more of his back between me and the gap.