Chapter 21 · Sixty-Second Purge

"Move your damn hand, Iris! Now!"

I jammed the barrel of my pistol into her temple. Cold steel against skin. I could feel her pulse jumping under the metal, frantic and fast. We were trapped in a concrete box that smelled like ozone and old blood. On the wall, the digital timer was screaming: 52 seconds.

"Get out of the way," I spat, "or I'll put a hole in your head before the purge does it for me."

My voice shook. The gun didn't.

Iris didn't even flinch. Her fingers kept flying across the keys. "If I stop now, the override fails. We all die in forty seconds. You want to gamble on that, Maya?"

"I'm not gambling!" I yelled, pressing the muzzle harder into her skull. "Nox locked us in here to die. He sold us out. I'm not letting some federal remnant decide if I live or die based on a keystroke!"

"Then shoot me." Iris snapped her eyes to mine. Cold. Calculating. Zero fear. "Do it. Save yourself ten seconds of waiting for the gas. But the moment you pull that trigger, you kill the only person who knows how to open that vault.