Chapter 22 · Shut It Before Dawn

“Open it.”

Vera shoved Micah hard enough that his shoulder hit the old subway door with a metal bang. The chains around his wrists rattled. Blood ran from one side of his mouth, bright even in the emergency red light.

The door behind him had no handle. Just rusted steel, old transit numbers, and a black crack running down the middle like somebody had split it with an axe.

My mother’s voice came through it anyway.

“Nora.”

Every hair on my arms lifted.

Micah looked at me, panicked. “Don’t listen to her.”

“You don’t get to give orders right now,” Vera said.

She had one hand twisted in Micah’s hair and the other holding a narrow silver blade against his throat. Not a knife. Not really. The thing looked too clean for this place. Too sharp. It caught the red light and threw it back at us.

Elias was on one knee a few feet behind me, one hand pressed to the wound in his chest. His shirt was black with blood.