Chapter 17 · The Clock That Isn't His

Chapter 17: The Clock That Isn't His

"Say the name again," Luca said, and his hand was still fisted in my torn sleeve, holding me three inches off the vent grate like I weighed nothing. "Say it so I know you heard it too."

"I heard it." My voice came out rough, scraped. "Some name that isn't you, isn't me. A stranger on your own radio, Luca. In your own building."

He didn't let go. The fabric at my shoulder was already split from the first time he'd grabbed me, and his knuckles sat right against the skin now, four white points that would be bruises by morning. I could feel the heat of him through what was left of my sleeve.

"Thirty-one minutes," he said. "That's what the panel said when the signal died. Somebody changed that number from outside my wire. You want to tell me how."

"I don't know how."

"You gave me a cabinet number an hour ago. You swore on it. Now a voice I don't recognize is naming people who don't exist in a room with a lock only two men alive can open.