“Ready.”
He hits the mag-lock release on the service door. It disengages with a heavy clunk.
He pulls the door open. Darkness stretches out before us, a long corridor leading into the belly of the beast.
“Stay close,” he says. “We’re walking into a trap.”
“I know.” I step up beside him, weapon drawn.
We cross the threshold. The heavy steel door slams shut behind us, sealing us in.
We are inside.
SEVENTEEN
Jackson
FATAL FUNNEL
The heavy steeldoor slams shut behind us, engaging with a mechanical thud that vibrates through the soles of my boots. The lock cycles.
A prison cell sound.
We’re inside.
The service corridor stretches out, a long throat of gray concrete and fluorescent hum. The air is recycled, sterile, and chilled to preserve the servers below. It smells of ozone and floor wax, a sharp contrast to the copper tang of blood still coating my knuckles.
My hands shake. Just a tremor.
Not fear.
Rage.
The image replays on a loop, superimposed over the gray walls:The barrel of the gun pressed against Talia’s temple. The indentation of the metal in her skin. The way her eyes went wide, not with panic, but with calculation.
If I had been a split second slower.
If the knife had slipped.
The beast inside my chest, the one I keep chained with discipline and mission parameters, rattles the bars. It wants to turn around, open that door, and tear the corpse in the alley apart until there’s nothing left to identify.
“Jackson?”
Talia’s voice cuts the loop.
Soft. Grounding.
I turn. She’s standing three feet away, weapon drawn, eyes scanning the junction ahead. She’s covered in grime, her hair escaping the bun she tied earlier, a smudge of oil on her cheek.
She is the only clean thing in this world.
“We move,” I rasp. “Subbasement three. The heart of the beast.”
The silence of the corridor vanishes, replaced by the chaotic symphony of war.
“—breaching front glass,”Ghost’s voice is a calm baritone amidst a cacophony of shattering glass.“Brass, flush the right flank.”
“On it,”Brass replies. A heavythump-thump-thumpof suppressed rifle fire follows.“Ugly statue in the lobby. Post-modern garbage.”
