Chapter 22 · Switch Twenty-Two

"Give me the crowbar." Marco's voice cracked over the dead hum of the compressors. Blood ran off his knuckles onto the panel, black in the red emergency light, and he didn't even look at it.

"You don't need a crowbar." I grabbed his wrist before he could swing.

"You need to tell me who that is." His pulse hammered under my fingers, too fast for a man who once signed a customs seizure order without blinking.

"Later, Lila."

"There is no later. There's eighteen minutes." I shoved his hand off the panel and pressed my own palm flat against the steel, hunting the seam where the padlock had dropped. Nothing gave. Just a dead bolt fused shut by somebody who wanted us breathing ice a long time before the cold finished the job. The voice came back through the vent, closer now, like it had crawled six feet nearer just to enjoy the view.

"You're wasting your grip strength, Mr. Bell. Switch twenty-four just went dark. Say hello." A light on the panel I hadn't noticed clicked from amber to flat, dead black. Twenty-four.