Chapter 27 · Ninety Seconds or Eight Minutes

"Don't." Dean's hand closed over my wrist before I even got the pry bar off the wall bracket.

"Get off me." I twisted, but he didn't let go. In the dark his grip was the only fixed point in the room, bone against bone, his thumb hard on my pulse like he was counting it.

"You smash that print head, you don't stop the batch. You jam it mid-run." His voice came low, close enough that I felt it more than heard it, warm air ghosting my jaw. "Half a page syncs instead of the whole thing. Half a page is still enough to end me."

"So what, we just stand here?" My back hit the rack. He came with me, not backing off an inch, his weight a wall I couldn't push. "Eight minutes, Dean. Independent battery. No grid, no kill switch, nothing."

"I know what we've got." His forehead nearly touched mine. I could feel the heat coming off him, that scorched-metal smell he'd had since the seal dropped, stronger now, wrong, good, both. "I'm thinking."

"Think faster."

He shoved me back against the rack with his forearm, not gentle, and for one second neither of us moved, chests locked together, his breath slamming into mine in the black.