Chapter 25 · The Occupancy Appendix Tears

"Say the name, Marco." I've got his wrist pinned flat against the steel switch panel, my thumb pressing into the bruise he already left on the back of my hand.

"You flinched when he said fourteen tides. I felt it. Whoever's running that line, you know him." His jaw goes tight.

"Doesn't matter who he is."

"It matters when he's deciding if my ice house dies at dawn." I shove the die against his chest. Fourteenth tide. My whole life riding on a plastic square the size of a poker chip, and this man won't give me one syllable.

"Pull the switch, Lila." He nods at the panel.

"That's his deal. Twenty-six. Then twenty-five. Room unlocks after."

"He's cut it early both times."

"Then we go faster." Cold rolls off the shelving in sheets. My breath fogs between us. I count inside my own head — three, two — and we throw the lever together, his hand flat over mine, palm hot against knuckles already purple from the last try. The strip light dies mid-flicker. Dark. Total, meat-locker dark, the kind that swallows sound whole.