He was wrong.
Twice.
I made it to the table, grabbed the nearest tray, and swung it. The edge caught the first man’s chest—ribs cracking under metal—and he went down hard. The second lunged, but I drove my hypodermic into his throat, ramming the plunger with my thumb enough for a quick dose. The fast-acting paralytic cocktail hit hard; his eyes rolled back as he collapsed, and I followed up with a stab to the throat, and he died choking on his own blood. I stayed moving, fast, vicious—kicking the first man in the face before he could rise, stomping down until he went still. Always keeping their bodies between Raven and me, using them as shields, obstacles, anything that bought me time.
Raven’s eyes were on me—wide, shining, almost proud for half a heartbeat. Then the pride snapped into something jagged. His mouth twitched, the manic edge slipping, and for the first time, I saw it clearly: fear. Real fear. Of me. Of the boy he’d molded into a weapon and suddenly could no longer control. His grip on the gun tightened, knuckles whitening, breath hitching as if he couldn’t decide whether to shoot me or run. Then helaughed—high, cracked, a sound that didn’t belong in a human throat.
“Look at you,” he hissed, voice shaking with something close to awe. “My perfect little monster thinks he can turn on me. You can’t walk away from what you are!” He took a step back, gun on me. “I made you. I broke you. I built you. And you still belong to me—right down to the blood on your hands.” I wasn’t going to reach him before he shot me; he was too far away, six feet maybe, and I made a show of wiping the scalpel on my shirt and then making deliberate motions to pocket it.
“Everyone should have a favorite scalpel,” I murmured, and his eyes tracked the movement.
My fingers brushed Jamie’s small, smooth burn disc. I’d wanted to get out of here alive. I wanted to save my sister, Bradley, Molly, and I’d wanted to get to know Levi more, see if there was any part of me I could rescue. But if I was going to die, then I don’t know how the fuck I’d do it, but I’d take Raven with me.
Raven mistook my pause for obedience. “On your knees.”
“No.”
He fired at the floor between my legs, the round sparking off concrete and spraying grit. He was shaking with adrenaline and glee now—not enough for anyone else to see, but I saw it. “Move,” he said. “On your fucking knees!”
“I’d rather die,” I said, channeling every broken part of me into defiance.
“That can be arranged,” he snapped and tightened his stance.
I smashed the tray sideways into the unsecured oxygen rigs, metal clanging against steel canisters that wobbled dangerously. One toppled, hissing as its valve fractured, oxygen blasting out in an icy roar that vibrated through my bones. The ignition device in my fist clicked under my thumb—small, smooth—and I slammed it on the container. Sparks burst where metal struckmetal, catching the leaking oxygen in an instant flash. The air itself seemed to ignite, blooming into a violent wall of heat that punched upward and ripped the breath from my lungs.
The explosion slapped the air, sending sparks racing up the wall. The chemicals soaked into the concrete and wood, and with awhoosh, sucked the oxygen right out of my lungs. The fire was alive and eating everything in its path.
Raven shouted as the fire reached his arm, charred his jacket, and he stumbled back.
Smoke thickened fast. My lungs burned with the first breath.
I heard shouting outside the half-open metal door… Levi… Novak… other voices. A sliver of light was visible through the smoke. I tried to get to the door, but Raven’s hand clamped on my shoulder, yanking me back with a strength born of panic. He shoved past me, tried to force himself through the door to escape the fire, but I threw my weight back, blocking him with everything I had. I wasn’t letting him out. Not him.
“Alejandro—” Levi shouted and reached for me.
“No!” I threw my shoulder against the door, slamming it shut before Raven could get out.I won’t let him hurt anyone else. He dies here today.
“No!” Levi’s voice cracked. “Don’t you fucking do this!”
Raven shoved me aside, pulling at the door, but it was on fire, burning, and smoke rolled low along the floor, thick and oily. The flames climbed the wall and crawled across the ceiling—too fast, too familiar. For a heartbeat, it was the cartel rooms again, heat blistering my face while I watched men I hated die, men who’d hurt my sister, my momma… me… The sound of it—crackling, popping—itched under my skin in the same place the old scars lived. I stepped back. No one was getting out.
Raven wasn’t getting out.
I was at peace with that. I flicked open the syringe, ready to give myself the remaining fatal dose, so when I burned, I’d knownothing, but Raven’s shadow moved through the flames, his face streaked with soot, eyes bright and wild.
“You think this ends here?” he rasped. “I survived before!”
“No door,” I said, and acceptance flooded me. This was done. I was done.
He lunged at me, and we slammed into a steel pillar. Pain shot up my back. He grabbed a bone saw from the floor, swinging it at my neck. I ducked, and it embedded itself into the wall, and he hit me—jaw snapping sideways, iron flooding my mouth, teeth rattling. The shock went straight down my spine, lighting up nerves that had been trained to brace for worse.
But I’d been hit worse. By him, his men, and the world he forced me to survive.
We crashed to the floor, rolling through burning debris that seared straight through my clothes. Smoke clawed down my throat, scraping it raw until I tasted blood and felt that old panic rising—the kind that used to choke me in locked rooms just like this.
“You were mine,” he spat, forcing my hand into fire as heat blistered my arm. “You werealwaysmine.”
“No,” I rasped, his gun at my temple, and I drove the hypodermic into his neck.
