Chapter 40 · Crown of Ash

The elevator dinged.

Not a polite ding. A slow, fat, we're-here ding that bounced off every gun rack in the vault.

My thumb found the safety on Lucian's 1911 and shoved it down. My hands were still slick with his blood. The grip kept trying to slide out of my palm.

"Bianca." His voice was gravel and wet air. "Drain. Take Mia. Go."

"You've got one and a half lungs," I said. "Stop talking."

"That's not a joke, that's an order."

"Then it's a bad one."

Mia crouched beside me with the flashlight cupped against her stomach. Her face was gray, but her eyes weren't scared. They were counting.

"The lift opens on the center aisle," she whispered. "Only one sightline. Racks on both sides. And the breaker panel is behind the third pillar."

"Can you reach it?"

"I drew it for my studio final." She almost smiled. "I've reached it in my sleep."

"Go. Stay low. When I say dark, you make it dark."

She went. Sneakers on concrete, quiet as breathing.

I planted myself behind the steel rack Lucian called his cathedral. Rifles in rows, oil and cold iron.