Chapter 27 · Grayson's War Factory

The factory smells like burning copper and old blood.

I drag Silas through a gap in the fence, and his weight nearly takes us both down. The moon contract is fraying at the edges—I can feel it like a wire cutting into my ribs. Every breath he takes costs me something.

"Ivy." His voice is barely there. "Leave me."

"Shut up."

The factory looms ahead, all rusted metal and broken windows. Grayson's private compound. The place he used to brag about when we were engaged—how his family turned raw materials into cutting-edge security tech. I didn't know back then that raw materials meant people.

Now I do.

I half-carry Silas through the loading dock. The door's already open. Someone knew we were coming.

Inside, the air tastes like iron. Rows of steel tables stretch out under flickering lights, and on every surface there are weapons. Blades. Bullets. Canisters of something that glows faint silver in the dark.

Silas stumbles, and I catch him before he goes down. His chest is still bleeding where Thane stabbed him. The poison's spreading—black veins crawl up his neck, and his skin's gone the color of ash.

"You need to get out," he says again.