Chapter 24 · Tick Down

The drill bit punched through the concrete eight inches from my skull.

Gray powder sprayed across my cheeks. The screech hit bone, rattling straight down into my back molars.

"Down!"

Dante snatched me off the server rack by my ribs and threw us both behind the reinforced vault door. My hip slammed the steel frame. I barely registered the ache.

Thick white smoke poured out of the overhead vents. Burnt matches. Hot copper. It coated the roof of my mouth like chalk.

"Don't inhale it," he barked. He ripped the cuff and forearm right off his dress shirt, balling the linen and shoving it against my face. "Cover your mouth. Wet it."

"With what?"

He jerked his chin toward the dregs of cold black coffee sitting on the metal console. I snatched the ceramic mug and dumped the bitter sludge over the cloth. My hands were shaking so hard half of it splashed my bare wrist.

"Through the cloth," he ordered. "Slow breaths."

"Stop bossing my lungs around."

"Then stop taking them in like you're trying to drown."

He didn't wait for my comeback.