The silence shifted.
Not loud. Not sharp.
Just different.
Like something on the other side of the wall had moved. Like the air wasn’t settled anymore.
Hailey’s fingers curled tighter around her knees. I tilted my head, listening. There, faint and muffled. The groan of old hinges. A footstep on metal. More than one set. Heavy boots. Pacing.
They were close.
The lights overhead flickered.
Once.
Then again.
My breath caught.
No alarms. No yells. Just that quiet hum of danger rising like the start of a storm.
Hailey looked at me, eyes wide. “What do we do?”
I didn’t answer right away.
My mind ran the checklist like Wrecker drilled into me.
Evaluate. Assess. Decide.
There was nowhere to run. No way to fight. Not yet. But we weren’t helpless. Not unless we gave in.
“We stay quiet,” I murmured. “We stay alert.”
The footsteps stopped.
Then, a new sound: the mechanical thunk of a deadbolt unlocking.
I shifted closer to Hailey and tucked her behind me. My heart pounded, but my hands didn’t shake.
They wanted fear.
I’d give them fire instead.
21
AMANDA
The sound of the lock turning felt like a gunshot.
I jerked upright so fast I nearly lost my balance. Hailey scrambled closer to me, the thud of her knees on concrete barely audible over the echo of heavy boots on metal stairs. We were both wide-eyed, breath held, bodies stiff with the kind of dread that made your teeth hurt.
The door clanged open.
They didn’t rush.
That was the first thing that set my teeth on edge.
Men who came to hurt you usually moved fast. Loud. Confident. These two lingered just inside the doorway, eyes adjusting, heads tilting like they were taking inventory instead of storming a cell.
