Chapter 7 · Somebody Else's Hand on the Bolt

"It's not taking my code." Dean hit the override panel a third time, knuckles white, and the little red LED just blinked at him like it thought he was funny.

"Because your code's a Rourke code," I said, not looking up from the board. "This whole bunker went into riot lock. Riot lock doesn't care what precinct you run."

"I run this one."

"Not right now you don't."

He turned around slow, and I felt it before I saw it — that thing in my chest that woke up an hour ago and hadn't gone back to sleep, pulling toward him like a compass needle that only points one direction now. I hated it. I kept my hand on the headset knob and my eyes on the panel light for Third Precinct, which was still, impossibly, open.

"Ward. Hey." A voice cracked through, half static. "You still there? We got a 10-33 stacking up on Delancey and nobody's answering the—"

"I'm here." My voice came out rough, wrecked around the edges from the bite still healing under my collar, and I hated that too, hated that a stranger on a dead channel could hear what Dean did to my throat. "Reroute through Adams, I'll call it in. Go."

Dean was still watching me. Not the board.