Chapter 14 · Blackout Run

"Don't touch that ward!" Lucan's hand locked around my wrist and yanked me back from the core wall before my fingers could brush the sigil.

"Let go!" I snapped. "Noah's vitals are tanking. You saw the readout. He's got minutes."

"And if you trip that ward wrong, every hunter in Vesper Bay will see us light up like a flare," he hissed. His chest was right against my back, pinning me to the humming concrete. I could feel his pulse hammering through his palm. "You want to save him or announce him?"

The core chamber was screaming. Not loud. Low. Like a fridge about to blow. The black veins in the wall pulsed under my palm, hot and wrong.

Noah's vitals were still projected on my cracked lens. 62%. 58%. Dropping.

"We don't have time for perfect," I said. "We do it messy."

"Messy gets him killed," Lucan said. "And you."

I twisted hard and got my wrist free. My skin burned where his contract mark flared. "You don't get to decide that. He's my brother."

"And you're my liability," he shot back. "You run in there blind, you bring the whole Authority down on that cell.