I start reading.
Minutes pass. Or maybe longer. Time moves differently when my mind locks onto something worth understanding.
I’m flipping to Chapter Eight when the first gunshot cracks through the halls.
The sound slices clean through the silence.
I freeze.
For a second, I tell myself it’s nothing. A misfire. One of the guards being careless during late-night drills.
It happens. Rarely, but it happens.
Then a second shot rings out.
Closer.
Sharper.
And this time, it isn’t alone.
A scream follows.
High. Sudden. Cut short.
Human.
My body moves before my mind catches up. The book slips from my hands, hitting the floor with a dull thud as I’m already turning, already moving, already running.
The door flies open.
The corridor is wrong.
Men are moving too fast.
Guards rush past me with weapons drawn, their usual composure shattered, voices raised in sharp, overlapping commands.
“Lock down the East Wing—now!”
“Where the hell did they come from?”
“Move—move!”
The air is different too.
Thicker.
I inhale—gunpowder. Smoke.
My heartbeat stays steady.
It always does.
But something cold settles in my chest as I take it all in, my mind working faster than the chaos around me.
This isn’t a drill.
This isn’t a mistake.
