Chapter 12 · Ninety Seconds

Dean's teeth are still on my skin, right at the gland, not breaking through, just sitting there like a threat he hasn't decided to keep, when the door takes a second hit and the whole frame screams metal on metal.

"Dean." My voice comes out wrong, too rough. "Door."

He doesn't move. His mouth is hot against my throat, his weight still pinning my shoulder into the console edge, bone against bone, and for one full second neither of us cares what's on the other side of that steel.

Then the amber light on the panel goes hard red and starts blinking, and the console screams a tone I've never heard it make in four years on this board.

That gets him off me.

Dean rears back like he's been burned, jaw slick, breathing like he ran here. "What the hell is that."

"That's not the seal alarm." I'm already twisting under him, both hands flat on his chest, shoving off the console. "Move."

He moves. Doesn't argue, doesn't grab, just steps back and lets me get to the board, which — coming from Dean Rourke — is its own kind of confession.

The readout on the airlock panel is wrong. I stare at it twice to make sure I'm reading it right.

LOCAL CONTROL: OFFLINE. REMOTE OVERRIDE: ACTIVE.

"No."