Then a shout.
Then another.
Then nothing.
Silence hits harder than the noise.
I step back from Verr without thinking, turning toward the door, my senses stretching outward, catching every small shift in the air, every scrape, every breath that isn’t ours.
“You expecting company?” I ask.
“No,” he replies.
“Good,” I mutter. “Because we’ve got it anyway.”
The corridor outside goes quiet again, but it’s not the same kind of quiet as before. This one is uneven, jagged at the edges, like something just tore through it and left the shape behind.
Then—
Footsteps.
Dragging.
Uneven.
Coming straight for us.
I move closer to the door, not touching it, just close enough to feel the faint shift of air along the edges where stone meets metal. My pulse kicks harder, sharper, not fear, not yet—anticipation.
“Whoever that is,” I say under my breath, “they’re not walking out of here clean.”
The lock scrapes.
Not smoothly.
Not correctly.
Something catches, metal grinding against metal like the mechanism is being forced instead of used.
Then the door jerks.
Stops.
Jerks again.
And slams open hard enough that it hits the wall behind it with a crack that echoes through the cell.
Skot stumbles in.
For half a second, my brain doesn’t process it.
Then it does.
And everything sharpens.
He’s covered in blood.
Not splattered.
