Chapter 42 · Blood in the Scanner

The tower bucked under my feet. Lucas caught my wrist before my face smashed into the maintenance hatch.

"Move," he snapped. "They're cutting power to the lower floors."

"Then stop grabbing me and get us downstairs."

He wrenched the hatch open. We dropped into a narrow service passage, metal scraping our shoulders as the tower shook around us.

Alarms screamed somewhere above.

"You keep saying hurry like I picked the bullet as an accessory," Lucas said.

"I don't care what you picked. I care whether you can open the archive before your family sends another squad."

"My family doesn't send squads. They send people who already know where you sleep."

"That's supposed to comfort me?"

"No. It's supposed to keep you close."

I stopped so fast he almost walked into me.

Emergency lights painted half his face red. Blood had dried along his temple. His injured arm hung stiff against his side, but he still looked at me like the alarms, the failing power, and the men hunting us were nothing compared to whatever stood between us.

"Try that again," I said. "Slower."

His jaw tightened. "Forget it."

"Coward."

"Survivor."

"Convenient answer."

"Still true."

The tower lurched again.