Chapter 16 · The Ping That Isn't His

The radio on the shelf spits static, then a voice, clean and official, cutting through the jam like it was never there at all.

"—Coast Guard Sector Providence, repeat, this channel is monitored, identify your position—"

Calder's hand slaps the unit dead before the sentence finishes. His jaw's gone to stone. "That's not possible," he says, mostly to himself. "I killed that frequency an hour ago."

"Guess it un-killed itself." My voice comes out thinner than I want. My lungs are doing that thing again, that tight, wrung-towel thing, and the inhaler's still somewhere in his jacket pocket, not mine.

He doesn't look at me. He's staring at the panic room's control panel like it insulted his mother. Red light, no light, red light. The bolt won't throw. Won't retract either. It's just sitting there, half-committed, like the door itself can't decide whose side it's on.

"Move," he says, and steps in front of me, shoulder first, like I'm the thing that needs blocking from the door instead of the other way around.

"Move where? It's four feet of steel and you."

He doesn't answer that.