Chapter 21 · Marked Registry - Chapter 21: Red Across the City

The alarm screamed through the building before Horne even finished talking.

Ella's fingers were still on the scanner, the blue light dying under her palm. Cain grabbed her wrist and yanked her back as the lobby doors blew open. Not Horne's people. The crowd.

They poured in like a flood. Marked and unmarked, shouting, shoving, phones up. Someone threw a chair at the reception desk. Glass shattered. Horne was yelling orders but his voice got swallowed in the noise. Ella couldn't tell who was on her side and who wanted her dead.

"Move." Cain shoved her toward the emergency exit.

She moved.

The stairwell was concrete and cold and her boots echoed too loud. Cain was right behind her, his hand on her shoulder, steering. She could hear footsteps above and below. No way to know if they were running from the same thing or running toward her.

"They saw me sign in," she said. Her voice came out shakier than she wanted. "Horne's got my biometrics now."

"He had them already." Cain pushed open the ground-floor door and checked the alley. Empty. For now. "You just made it official."

"That supposed to make me feel better?"

He didn't answer.