“You think I do?” she whispered back. “But we’re here. And he built this place around your mind. He wants you to step through that door because it’s the one thing he thinks he can control.”
She stepped closer.
“So let’s prove him wrong.”
For a moment, the world narrowed to her eyes—fierce, determined, soft where she’d never admit it.
Then I exhaled slowly, turned to the door, and placed my hand on the black square.
The metal warmed beneath my palm. A faint beep vibrated through the frame.
Then—
A soft chime.
A hiss of hydraulics.
The door cracked open, darkness bleeding out like breath from a sleeping beast.
Miles swallowed. “We’re in.”
I stared into the black, pulse steadying into something sharp and lethal.
“Stay close,” I said.
Julia stepped right behind me. “I told you—try to get rid of me.”
Together, we walked into the dark.
And the door sealed shut behind us.
31
Julia
Dark swallowed us whole.
Not the natural kind—this was engineered darkness. A blackout built from intent. The kind that didn’t just hide things… it amplified them.
“Hawk, light,” I whispered.
His tactical lamp snapped on with a clean white beam. Mine followed. The hallway ahead stretched long and narrow, walls lined in brushed steel that gleamed like bone.
Behind us, the door remained sealed. No handle. No panel. Nothing but a wall of cold metal.
“We’re not getting out that way,” Hawk murmured.
Good. I didn’t want to.
We moved forward slowly, boots silent on the smooth floor. The air was too clean, sterile in a way that only expensive filtration could ever be.
Reese’s voice floated up in my mind.
You’ll have to decide which one of you is willing to shut it down.
I shoved the thought away. He wanted to get into our heads.
Too bad for him—we weren’t that easy to break.
