Chapter 20 · The Lock Breaks

The floor tilts under my feet. Sparks rain from the ceiling grid. Rowan's got her hand locked around my wrist, dragging me toward the central column where the light console used to be. Now it's just a cracked panel and a mess of exposed fiber.

"Sixty seconds," she says. Her voice is flat. Not cold. Just empty.

I yank my arm free. "Sixty until what?"

"Until the structure fails." She doesn't look at me. Her eyes are on the panel. "The mark is still live. If we leave now, Knox can reactivate it remotely. You'll lose me."

I want to argue. I want to grab her and run. But I hear the groan in the walls, the hiss of something venting three floors down, and I know she's right.

"Fine." I step up next to her. "Tell me what to do."

Rowan's fingers move over the cracked screen. Half the interface is dark. The other half flickers between system menus I don't recognize. She pulls up a schematic. It's the same mark I saw on her neck the first night. The one that glowed when Knox said her name.

"There," Rowan says. She taps a node at the center.