Chapter 28 · Hold

"Open it," the voice said again, and the bolt actually moved.

I felt it in the floor before I heard it — a shudder through the vault plate, metal teeth walking backward inside the frame. Vale's arm came across my chest like a seatbelt, shoving me two steps toward the shelving.

"Behind me," he said. Not a request.

"I can see fine from here."

"Gia."

"I'm not the one whose key just died, Vale."

That landed. His jaw ticked, and for a second the amber light painted both of us the same ugly color, like a bruise under bad lighting. The door kept crawling open — an inch, then two — and stopped.

Just stopped. Mid-throw. A groan of metal fighting metal, then nothing.

"That's not normal," Vale said. He wasn't talking to me. He had his palm flat against the steel like he could feel the mechanism arguing with itself underneath.

The intercom crackled. Same woman. Steadier now, like she'd expected the stall.

"Override's fighting a local lock," she said. "Somebody's holding the door from your side."

"Nobody's holding anything," I said, loud enough to carry. "There's two of us and neither one's touching it."

A pause.