Think.
The command comes hard and clear through the panic trying to rise inside me.
Think Rowan.
The floor beneath my knees is littered with warehouse debris, little things I only half notice at first because most of my attention is fixed on the gun, the hand holding it, the angle of Kiren’s weapon, and the distance between us. There’s dust. Splintered wood. A broken plastic strap. A metal bracket snapped off something larger. And just beyond my right hand, almost completely hidden beneath a smear of grime and tracked-in slush, a length of rusted pipe no longer than my forearm.
The enforcer is still shouting, and Kiren still hasn’t fired. He won’t, not while I’m like this. The realization comes with suddenclarity. If anything changes here, it will have to be because I change it.
My right hand inches across the floor. The enforcer doesn’t notice. His entire focus is forward, fixed on Kiren and the men positioned behind him.
“Tell them to back up!” he demands.
Kiren’s eyes are on me now in a way that tells me he sees the movement, or maybe only the intent behind it. He gives me nothing outwardly. No warning or instruction. But something in his face changes by a degree so small I could miss it if I didn’t know him.
He understands.
The pipe is cold when my fingers close around it. It leaves rust on my palm.
I don’t let myself think past the next second. If I think too far, I won’t do it at all. I draw in one breath, adjust my weight just enough to give my arm room, and then drive the jagged end of the pipe down and back with everything I have.
The sharp metal punches through the leather of the enforcer’s boot and into his foot. A blood-curdling scream rips from him as his body folds in on instinct, the gun jerking away from my head.
Kiren fires.
The shot cracks through the warehouse so close to me that my ears ring instantly. Warmth splashes across the side of my face. The enforcer falls backward, his grip vanishing from my arm at the same time his body hits the floor.
For one strange second, the whole world narrows to sound and motion as the gun skitters across the concrete, my breath tears in and out of my lungs, and the pipe falls from my hand.
Then Kiren is in front of me. He drops to one knee so fast I almost don’t see it happen before his hands are on me, one at my shoulder and the other against the side of my face, checking, searching, making sure I’m still alive. His eyes move over me in a quick, ruthless sweep, taking in every mark, every place the blood might belong to me instead of someone else.
“Rowan.”
He doesn’t raise his voice, but hearing my name in his mouth like that, low and raw and stripped of everything except urgency, does something to me I can’t think about right now.
“I’m here,” I breathe.
The answer barely makes it out before he pulls me up from the floor and into him with a force that almost undoes me. His hand presses against the back of my head, fingers sliding into the loose strands that have fallen free, and for one dangerous second, the warehouse, the smoke, the bodies, the gunfire, all of it falls away beneath the simple fact of him being real and solid and here.
He draws back just enough to look at me again, one hand still at the side of my neck as if he doesn’t trust the world not to rip me away if he lets go.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.” The answer comes too fast.
His eyes narrow slightly, and he sweeps one more look over me.
“Rowan.”
“I’m not,” I insist, holding his wrist for a second because I need him to hear what matters first. “Lila is still in the room.”
That reaches him. His expression changes immediately, not softer or calmer, but redirecting. His head turns toward the corridor while he keeps one arm around me.
“She’s alive?”
“Yes. She’s injured, but she’s alive.”
One of his men appears to our left, weapon raised, scanning the upper catwalk. “Kiren!”
