Chapter 27 · Burn Together

The ceiling hit the floor before I did.

Concrete dust choked my throat. My ears were screaming. Somewhere behind a wall of caved-in stone, the armory door was buried—and every piece of heavy brass we needed was locked behind it.

"Dante."

Nothing.

"Dante!"

My hands found him in the dark before my eyes could adjust. Wet wool. Hot and sticky. Blood surged up between my knuckles, slick and fast.

"Stop shouting," he rasped, mouth brushing my cheek. "I'm right here."

He was down on one knee, forearm clamped tight against his ribs. Shrapnel from the blast had shredded his tactical jacket, turning all that fresh gore into a thick gray sludge under the falling drywall. In the strobing red of the emergency lights, his skin was the color of chalk.

"You're bleeding out," I whispered.

"Didn't say I wasn't."

"Move your hand. Let me see it."

"Lucia—"

"Move it, Dante!"

He pulled his arm back. I instantly wished he hadn't.

The tear tore from his hip upward across his ribs, ragged and open. Every shallow breath pushed out another pulse of dark crimson.

I gripped the ruined lace at my thigh and yanked.