Chapter 19 · Dad's Lock

The thing behind the First Lock hit the door again.

The whole basement jumped with it.

Dust spilled from the ceiling. The iron frame buried in the far wall bowed inward, just a little, like somebody huge had leaned their shoulder against it.

Carson staggered back from the lock, one hand clamped over the cut in his palm. Blood ran through his fingers and dripped onto the concrete.

"Don't give it any more," Gideon shouted.

His voice cracked halfway through the words.

I didn't look at him. I couldn't. Jonah was on the floor beside the black stone circle, wires wrapped around his wrists and chest, his face gray under the blue light coming off the gate.

His heart monitor screamed once. Then again.

"Jonah." I dropped beside him so hard my knees smacked concrete. "Hey. Hey, look at me. Come on."

His eyelids twitched.

That was it.

A tiny movement. But I grabbed it like it was a rope somebody had thrown me over a cliff.

"Mia," Sera said through every speaker in the room.

Her voice came from the busted security panel. From the old intercom over the steel door.