Chapter 7 · Third Hand at the Table

"Marco!" I hit the door with both fists. The steel doesn't even ring. It just eats the sound, flat and dead, the way everything in this room eats heat.

"The handle's not moving. Marco, the handle isn't moving!" Through the frosted glass strip in the door I watch him stop mid-stride, halfway down the corridor, his back still to me. For one second — one full second — he doesn't turn around. Like he's deciding whether my voice is worth the trip back.

"Marco Bell, I swear to God—" He turns. He comes back fast, boots slapping concrete, and grabs the handle himself, yanks it down and shoulders the door like his weight alone can argue with a deadbolt. Nothing. He hits it again.

The glass fogs where his breath meets mine from opposite sides, two clouds not quite touching, and I can smell him through the seam — leather, diesel, something sharp underneath that's just him, cutting straight through the freezer stink of brine and old fish crates.

"It's not the handle," he says, low, mostly to himself.

"It's the panel."

"What panel?" He doesn't answer.