Chapter 21 · Price of a Pure Core

"Don't you stop! Don't you fucking stop!" Vera's nails dug into my forearm and yanked me forward as the floor shook behind us.

"I'm not stopping!" I snarled, but my legs were already slipping. The swarm was right on our ass. You could hear them. Clicking. Scraping. Hundreds of claws on wet concrete.

"Faster!" she shouted. "The gate's thirty meters! If it seals we're dead!"

"No shit!" I had Pip tucked against my chest with one arm. He was shaking so hard his little teeth were chattering. "You got a plan or just cardio?"

"The plan is you don't die before we get there!" Vera shoved my back. Her palm was hot even through the grafted hide on my shoulder. "That core in your chest? That's the key! You die, it rots! We don't get out!"

The exit was a crack of white light at the end of the service tunnel. Old lab doors, half-melted open. And between us and it? The whole damn nest waking up.

Something grabbed my ankle.

I went down hard. Pip flew out of my arms and hit the ground rolling.

"Jace!" Vera spun, gun up. She fired twice.