Chapter 27 · Whoever's Holding the Switch

"Don't." Calder's hand locks around my wrist before my fingers even touch the panel.

"It's my code." I don't pull back. Pulling back is what losers do.

"Half your code." His thumb finds my pulse and presses, like he's counting it instead of me. "The other half's still mine. You keep forgetting that part."

The countdown on the wall reads 04:12 and drops another second while we stare at each other over it. Red digits, no sound. No beep, no tick. Just the number changing, which is worse — like the wet locker itself is holding its breath with us.

"Four minutes till what," I say. "Till your cousins pull up to the dock and I get carried out in a duffel bag?"

"Till the hatch reseals whether we're ready or not." He still hasn't let go. His grip isn't hard enough to bruise. Yet. Just hard enough I know it could be, any second, if he decided he wanted it that way. "That's not me threatening you, Ira. That's the house. It does what it does."

"Then let go and let me finish the code before it locks us in with the wrong people standing on the other side."