Chapter 6 · The Latch Doesn't Open

The bolt slides home behind me before I can turn around.

Steel on steel, a sound like a tooth pulling loose. I spin. Calder's already got his back against the hatch, arms crossed, and my inhaler sitting in his closed fist like a coin he won off me.

The room's soundproofed—no windows, no vents that lead anywhere but the wet locker, the fluorescent strip overhead buzzing low enough I can feel it in my teeth. Four walls of cold steel and one door he's just turned into a wall too. No sound gets in and none gets out. That's the whole design of a panic room, and he built this one himself.

"Open it," I say.

"No."

"Calder—"

"You want air, you talk numbers first." He shakes the inhaler once, plastic rattling against his palm. "Dock code. Full one. Not the half you gave me last week."

My chest is already going tight. Not fear-tight. River-air tight, mildew and cold copper pipe, the kind that sits behind my ribs like a fist closing slow.