Chapter 10 · The Hold

"Say that again." Torin's thumb was still on the tunnel door release when the radio clipped to his belt spat static, then a voice.

"Building security. We got a walk-in at the pump room, sir. Says he's from the trustee's office. Says he's got paperwork."

Torin's face didn't move. That was the scariest part about him — nothing on his face ever moved when it should. "Lock the tunnel door," he said to me, already turning. "Stay behind me."

"I don't take orders from you." But I was already moving, boots slapping concrete, because whoever was in that pump room with paperwork was in my building too, in my clause, in the seven games keeping the pension alive.

We hit the stairwell down. Cold came up to meet us before we even opened the door — that wet-metal, chlorine-and-oil smell that meant we were under the ice now, under everything. The pump room door was propped with a rubber wedge.